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THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

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Having divided the individual durations into groups whose sums reflected the<br />

above proportions, Ligeti went about arranging these into an order which would produce<br />

the musical surface of Apparitions. Here Ligeti proceeds statistically, and probably<br />

somewhat intuitively, rather than by any serial ordering. Table 4.4 shows that is some<br />

modification of the numbers at this point–the upper row of numbers comes directly from<br />

the numbers shown in Table 4.2-A, the lower row shows the values Ligeti will actually<br />

employ in the piece. The modifications are most likely to avoid repetition which could<br />

lead to some sort of periodicity or even a brief feeling of meter, and also to increase the<br />

variety of rhythmic units, including numbers like 1 and 7 which were not part of the<br />

original scheme. Where Ligeti subtracts from one value, however, he adds this amount to<br />

another, so that the sums and their underlying proportions remain unchanged.<br />

Table 4.4. Rhythmic Scheme for Apparitions, mvt. 1, Section A<br />

A<br />

160 48 20 80 32 14 20 32 10 20 14 6 10 14 14<br />

160 56 16 80 28 12 20 32 12 16 14 6 10 16 12<br />

10 6 4 10 4 6 3 2 3 4 6 3 4 6 2 2 4 3 2 3 2 2<br />

10 6 4 12 5 7 3 1 4 5 6 2 3 7 2 1 5 4 1 2 1 4<br />

This numerical scheme corresponds to the reduced score example given found in Figure<br />

9<br />

4.1. This reduced score gives only the type of instrument or instruments playing and the<br />

nd<br />

total duration as both a note value and a number of 32 notes. In this reduction the<br />

rhythmic design of this section of the piece becomes quite clear. However some of the<br />

decisions Ligeti made in devising these details, and the aesthetic concerns they entail<br />

9cf.<br />

György Ligeti, Apparitions (Vienna: Universal Edition, UE 18326, 1964), 1-2.<br />

211

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