THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

The overlapping sound in the left channel (labeled Event 2b-c) poses even more
difficulties to clear segmentation. While it is a temporally connected unit it undergoes a
dramatic shift from the beginning to the end, and its beginning and end states have vastly
different sonic associations. The two beginning gestures of Event 2b (2'23"-2'24") are
very dry and clipped, the first quite noisy and the second showing indications of more
compact formant strands. This suggests a move from diffuse to compact, similar to what
is happening concurrently in 2a. The emergence of compact formants continues in the
gestures that follow. The pitch based gestures of 2c, however, suddenly switch from dry
to reverberated, and from being coordinated spectra to being more free standing tones.
Thus while the first two gestures are easily assimilated into Event 2a, concurrent in the
right channel, 2c uses reverberation and channel separation to distinguish itself from the
right channel’s events. This reverberated sound looks forward to Event 3, which is, in
fact, an almost identical sound to the final gestures of Event 2c.
Event 3
Event 3 stretches out from 2'33" to 2'37", and consists of heavily reverberated
pitches, similar to those of Event 2c and also reminiscent of earlier reverberated pitches
such as those of Region B. The longer, sustained pitches make a smooth transition into
the events of Region L, which are, by and large, longer and begin to increase in density,
continuing to build up material approaching Region M, which is the densest of the piece.
The shorter events which interrupt these longer spans (Event K-3b and L-1b) create a
similar rhythm which also helps connect the end of Region K to the beginning of L.
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