THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

I. Background of Artikulation
Chapter 3: Analysis of Artikulation
The best known of Ligeti’s works in the electronic medium, and, by the
composer’s own account, the most thoroughly worked out of his three tape pieces,
Artikulation is a critical work in his stylistic development. It is this piece in which his
divergence from the prevalent serial practices of the studio of the WDR is most
pronounced, and in which he begins to develop his own language more fully. Because of
1
its early success in concerts and radio broadcasts, Artikulation is more widely recognized
and has received more analytical attention than the other tape pieces, most notably from
Rainer Wehinger, whose “listening score” provides valuable information on the
2
composition of this piece as well as a rudimentary introduction to its form.
The piece was composed in the first months of 1958, shortly after completing
Glissandi, however, Artikulation was actually the third piece which Ligeti started; he
began work on the composition now called Piece electronique no. 3 before starting on
Artikulation, but left this piece unfinished. By this point Ligeti had already picked up
valuable information on current developments in serialism from Stockhausen, Koenig, and
others, knowledge he demonstrated later in the same year when he published his analysis
of Boulez’s Structures Ia in Die Reihe. In this article as well as in his music, Ligeti
1Artikulation
was premiered later in March of 1958, shortly after it was completed, and was used as an
example in many of Stockhausen’s lectures on electronic music through the 1960s. By comparison,
Glissandi was not heard publicly until much later, and has been described by the composer himself as an
initial ‘finger exercise’ (see the previous chapter).
2Rainer
Wehinger, Ligeti – Artikulation: Electronische Musik, eine Hörpartitur (Mainz: Schott, 1970).
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