THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

Using this terminology in place of the vague but colorful descriptive terms which
Ligeti himself used, the following analysis will attempt to specify what the composer may
have meant by his description of Artikulation in Die Reihe, which I will now quote in full:
In my electronic piece ‘Articulation’ the aspect that occupied me most was the
composition of the mutual effects exercised by these ‘aggregate-conditions’ on one
another. First I chose types with various group-characteristics and various types
of internal organization, as: grainy, friable, fibrous, slimy, sticky and compact
materials. An investigation of the relative permeability of these characters
indicated which could be mixed and which resisted mixture. The serial ordering of
such behaviour-characteristics served as a basis for the erection of the form. In the
detail-work I attempted to obtain contrast between the types of material and
between the modes of amalgamation, whereas the over-all plan was a gradual,
irreversible progress from the heterogeneous disposition at the beginning to the
complete mixture and inter-penetration of the contrasted characters at the end. 26
As the terms grainy, friable, etc. are somewhat nebulous, we shall do better to use
Cogan’s terminology to indicate points of contrast and similarity between types of
material. Ligeti’s use of “permeability” is clarified earlier in his article’s discussion of
Stockhausen’s Gruppen:
it is vitally important to pay attention to the available degrees of permeability. The
two extreme types enjoy exceptionally good mutual permeability: a dense,
gelatinous soft and sensitive material can be penetrated ad libitum by sharp,
hacked splinters... ‘Soft’ materials are less permeable when combined with each
other, and there are places in Stockhausen’s ‘Gruppen’ of an opaque complexity
beyond compare. 27
Here it seems that Ligeti’s definition of permeability has to do with materials’ ability to
stand out from each other when occurring simultaneously. Thus highly contrasting
materials are mutually permeable–one will ‘penetrate’ or stand out from the other. Inter-
penetration, on the other hand, must be regarded as a state of complete and mutual
26
Ligeti, “Metamorphosis,” 15.
27
Ligeti, “Metamorphosis,” 14-15.
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