THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

penetration–which amounts to an opaque, impermeable texture–a state of complete
mixture.
While Ligeti’s wording distances the final output from any specific serial
techniques (we have already seen the modifications to the original formal plan above), the
idea of a global process of a heterogeneous texture moving towards a less permeable,
more opaque texture remains salient. This will be seen in the piece, by an incremental
build-up of increasing volume, and internal complexity. This kind of teleological goal is
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akin to a normative direction for the piece, but one which is greatly nuanced by the
surface of the piece.
Ligeti states another of his goals as seeking contrast in the materials and modes of
amalgamation–as materials are well defined above, I will now posit possible meanings of
the latter. Much of the piece is concerned not only with simple states of sonic
oppositions–one extreme, the other, or a neutral state in between–but is also concerned
with ways that this material might transform itself from one state to another. Especially
after the first stage of the piece is
over, materials will focus on one oppositional state, keeping it constant, often
emphasizing it, while gradually changing others, and thus transforming the material. It is
also in the later stages of the piece where Ligeti plays with the difference between neutral
states and states of mixture. This interplay brings about interesting, almost paradoxical,
situations where one opposition seems to blend into another.
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In fact, Ligeti describes a similar global direction in Apparitions as an “imaginary musical syntax” in
“States, Events, Transformations” (trans. Jonathan Bernard) in Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 31. no.
1(Winter 1993), 171.
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