THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

IV. Analysis:
Overview:
With these considerations in mind, I will first present an overview of the design of
Artikulation to provide a context for the more detailed analysis which follows. A
spectrograph of the entire piece provides an ideal view of the form of the entire work,
which runs to 3'47".
The spectrograph in Figure 3.2 is useful in examining the composition’s macro-
structure and to locate where other more detailed pictures will fall within the whole. I
maintain that the form consists of three basic stages. The first stage lasts until 1'10"; the
second, transitional stage picks up from there, lasting until 2'18", one second off of the
golden section of the piece, 2'19". Stage III, which includes the climax of the piece, lasts
from 2'18" to 3'20", and the Coda 3'20" through 3'47". Stage I, including Regions A-F, is
largely expository introducing basic sound types in specific registers and in various
combinations, often in what Ligeti terms “dialogs.” These lead to progressively more
complicated structures within each region, yet the basic sound types remain clearly
distinguishable. The transitional Stage II begins to obscure these divisions as each side of
a given dialogue becomes more internally differentiated, and Ligeti explores different
connections and transformations between sonic characters. In Stage III, the move
towards density and “inter-penetration” that Ligeti describes is most evident as the events
of the piece begin to pile up into dense masses. After this dense section, the final 30
seconds of the piece seem like a coda or epilogue in which the sounds become very dry
and clipped, and once again separate from one another as they fade away.
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