Tempo http://journals.cambridge.org/TEM Additional services for Tempo: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Ligeti the Postmodernist? Mike Searby Tempo / Issue 199 / January 1997, pp 9 ­ 15 DOI: 10.1017/S0040298200005544, Published online: 23 November 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0040298200005544 How to cite this article: Mike Searby (1997). Ligeti the Postmodernist?. Tempo, pp 9­15 doi:10.1017/S0040298200005544 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/TEM, IP address: 141.241.166.121 on 25 Apr 2013 Mike Searby Ligeti the Postmodernist? The stylistic changes in Gyorgy Ligeti's music eminent influence on Ligeti in his formative years: since 1960 have in some ways mirrored those in Bartok remained my idol until 1950, and he continued the wider contemporary music world. In his to be very important [to] me even after I left the music of the 1960s he displays an experimental country in 1956.4 and systematic approach to the exploration of sound matter which can also be seen in the Ligeti himself considers that Bartok's influence contemporaneous music of composers such as has returned in his music: Xenakis, Penderecki and Stockhausen. In the Ever since the 1980s I have experienced a kind of 1970s his music shows a more eclectic approach, return to Bartok, especially as far as the Piano particularly the opera Le Grand Macabre (1974-7) Concerto is concerned.5 in which there is much plundering of past styles - The resulting music, however, is very different to such as allusions to Monteverdi, Rossini, and his Bartok-tinged music of the 1950s because it Verdi. From this work onward there would shows a synthesis of materials from the 1960s appear to be a complete break from the approach with tonal/modal elements and new ideas. These in his works on the 1960s. new ideas include Sub-Saharan and Caribbean This softening of the avant garde, modernist polyrhythms, fractal geometry (although admit- stance can also be identified in the music of tedly it is difficult to identify this feature clearly), Ligeti's contemporaries, such as Berio, Xenakis, and the player-piano music of the American Maxwell Davies, and Penderecki.1 Ligeti's music composer Cordon Nancarrow. Ligeti's recent of the 1980s and 1990s has continued evolving music does show elements of past styles and his towards greater approachability and an almost attitude to the avant garde seems to have changed: tonal or modal (or at least, in his words, 'non- atonal')2 language. The general trend of con- My rejection of avant garde music also lays me open to attacks and accusations of being a postmodern temporary music in the last 15 years seems to 6 consist of a gradual shift away from a 'modernist' composer. I don't give a damn. and atonal approach, towards an unashamedly Ligeti's latest music refers to music and approaches 'postmodernist' and tonal one. of the past in some ways, but to label it as Stephen Taylor, in his study of Ligeti's later postmodernist is misleading. To develop a full music, asks some pertinent questions: understanding of why Ligeti (like some of his ... has the new music in fact simply returned to contemporaries) has shifted towards a more Ligeti's old style, before he left Hungary? Has Ligeti, conservative approach, it is necessary to consider in spite of all his protestations to the contrary, gone briefly the compositional techniques he used in 'retro'?3 the 1960s. Ligeti's music from the early 1960s shows a There are some superficial resemblances between complete destruction of traditional composi- Ligeti's 'Hungarian' works, such as the String tional means. For example in a work like Quartet No.l (1953-4), and his recent music: not Atmospheres for orchestra (1961), melody, harmony least the rediscovery of Bartokian stylistic and rhythm are all practically excluded in favour features, particularly in the rhythms of Ligeti's of texture and timbre. The harmony largely recent compositions. Bartok's music had a pre- consists of saturated semitone clusters; there is no clearly recognizable melody. This music does 1 Penderecki has gone much further towards a tonal language composing in a kind of sub-Brucknerian style from die 1970s show a type of polyphony described by Ligeti as onwards. Mikropolyphonie, but this "results in a complex 2 Szitha, T. 'A Conversation with Gyorgy Ligeti', Hungarian 4 'A Conversation with Gyorgy Ligeti', p.14. Music Quarterly, Vol 3, ptl, 1992, p.15. 5 Ibid., p.14. 3 Taylor, S., 77ie Lamento Motif: Metamorphosis in Ligeti's Late Style, DMA, Cornell University, 1994, p.18. 6 Ibid., p.15. http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 25 Apr 2013 IP address: 141.241.166.121 10 Ligeti: the Postmodernist? interweaving texture, rather than audible counter- individual parts move at a quicker pace than the point.7 What can be observed in Atmospheres is surrounding texture, bringing them forward in a 'razing to the ground' of past traditions and the perspective of the musical landscape. Even in building a compositional edifice with completely the enormous web-like structures of Lontano new foundations. there are always instruments and motifs which Throughout the 1960s it is possible to identify are more apparent to the ear; this is almost a in Ligeti's music a refining of the techniques chance-like function of Ligeti's orchestration. If found in Atmospheres and Apparitions for orchestra all the instruments (or voices) are marked/>/», it is (1958-9). Mikropolyphonie becomes a much more inevitable that the balance will not be completely varied and subtle device, controlling the whole equal (indeed this unevenness of balance is almost process and evolution of a work in a similar way essential to the music, otherwise the texture to the compositional processes found, for could become extremely bland and featureless). example, in the music of Steve Reich. Lontano for Each performance/recording of Lontano (or other orchestra (1967) and LuxAeterna for voices (1966) similar works) is therefore quite distinct, because are particularly significant examples of this the 'foreground' parts will never be the same; it is refined process.8 There is less use of the broad not simply a matter of interpretation but is a 'brush-stroke' of texture and timbre, and more result of the musical language.9 reliance on arhythmic canons. The aural result The shift towards melodic writing becomes consists of a slowly shifting cluster, starting from even more clear in Ligeti's Chamber Concerto a unison note and gradually expanding, rather in (1969-70) and in Melodien for orchestra (1971). In the way a fertilized egg develops, by splitting the former work, the second movement shows each cell into two, and then each new cell splits the solo instruments (horn, trombone, and oboe again, ad infinitum. See Ex.1, from LuxAetema, d'amore) taking parts of the surrounding back- showing the background clusters: ground texture and placing them in the foreground Ex.1 bars 1-12 bar 1 12 L- h., 1»« The background shifting clusters do not consist of by slowing them down and increasing the simple superimposed semitones, but also have dynamic; see Ex.2. Here the Mikropolyphonie has whole-tone and minor-third gaps. There is been magnified so that the lyricism of the therefore a greater sense of 'harmony', although individual lines is audible. It shows that Ligeti's not of traditional harmonic progressions, as each style has evolved into a more expressive and harmony dissolves into the next. This technique arguably subjective language. Ligeti himself says can be clearly seen in the Etude 'Harmonies' for concerning Melodien: organ (1967) which has the visual appearance of a ... the melodicaUy shaped parts retain their indivi- reduction to the background clusters of one of duality, they move simultaneously at varying speeds the micropolyphonic works. and possess a melodic and rhythmic line of their own, It is possible to perceive a shift towards more varying from and independent of the other parts. In melodic formations, even in polyphonic works this way melodic shape, that forbidden fruit of modern like LuxAetema. This feature can be heard where music, can to some extent be restored.10 This work was written in 1971; it is revealing to 7 Mikropolyphonie consists of many canonic lines superimposed but with different rhythms, producing a tight web-like observe how often Ligeti has 'bitten' into the texture with a background cluster which slowly evolves. 8 Ligeti continues to use canonic structure in later works such 9 A similar phenomenon can be seen in works like as Magyar Etiidok (1983) although this uses a more traditional Penderecki's Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima, which uses rhythmic canon. The structure and process in these pieces are chance-like textures, although it is much more clearly explored in detail in the following article: Luminita Aluas, aleatoric in Penderecki's case. 'Visible and Audible Structures: Spatio-Temporal Com- promise in Ligeti's Magyar Etiidok', Tempo 179, December 10 Gyorgy Ligeti, Ligeti in Conversation, London, Eulenberg, 1992, pp.7-17. 1983, p.137. http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 25 Apr 2013 IP address: 141.241.166.121 Ligeti the Postmodernist? 11 Ex.2 2nd Movement bar 24 (background} PPPP : mp dolce apparently 'forbidden fruit' of melody over the dissonance. This can create an unnecessarily next 25 years. restricted harmonic palette in which many In his works of the early 1960s, however, there possible harmonies are taboo. What can be seen is a sense in which Ligeti destroyed the traditional in Ligeti's later works, such as the Horn Trio elements of music such as harmony, melody, and (1983), Piano Concerto (1988) and Violin rhythm, to allow himself to focus on the Concerto (1992), is an incredibly rich and wide parameters of texture and timbre.11 It is hardly range of harmony.