THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

all this is accomplished by the progressively shorter lengths of the individual events
(respectively 10, 4, and 1 seconds), and secondly by the intensities within each event.
Event One begins with very soft reverberated impulses, as if fading in from a distance;
these steadily increase in intensity through the course of the event, as can clearly be seen
by the darkening images in the spectrograph shown in Figure 3.6, above. In conjunction
with the spectrograph, we can see that it is not only the material above 600 Hz increasing
in intensity, but also the impulses underneath this level also gain strength. As a result of
this individual attacks become more perceptible, culminating in the low, dry, final impulse.
These are seen in the spectrograph as images whose lefthand edges take less time to fade
in. These spectral features are evident in the second event, clearly darker and more well
defined anything occurring in Event One; the second event sounds much like a
condensation of the first, expanding the register covered while contracting the amount of
time, and again aided by the low final impulses. The third event, though short, has very
prominent attacks and is at least as loud as Event 2, thus continuing the trend towards
heavier attacks and louder overall dynamic levels.
Reverberation
Across all three events there is also a steady decrease in the use of reverberation,
causing the ends of events to taper off more quickly. In the first two events this is
highlighted by the dry, punctuating impulses. The third event itself is entirely
unreverberated, and, since this event is also relatively loud, and the shortest of the three, it
completes the overall motion of the region toward louder more accelerated material. The
following table of oppositions (Table 3.5) represents many of the coordinated sonic
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