THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

schematic. Three-quarters of the way through the piece, the schematic form has the
potential to present all the material of the piece twice, once in the first half and once more,
considering the combination of retrograde and prime forms; these combinations are
substantially enriched by the anomalies, and together present an extremely rich network of
associations on which the last quarter of the piece will draw.
Stage 2
Stage 2 contains no anomalies; all of the material heard in this stage is allotted
according to the schematic description of the piece’s form. In this regard it is simpler than
the first stage, but the degree to which Stage 2 is fragmented, and thus obscures the
direction of either the retrograde or prime forms, makes it conceptually quite complex. I
will treat Stage 2 in three divisions: the first, a transitional region comprising D and
R
Section D , (5'33-5'53"), the second, a span of largely invariant gestures taken, most
notably from the reprises of Sections E and F (5'53"-6'51"), and finally the stretch
R
corresponding to Section A , which carries the piece to its close. These are shown below
in a spectrograph, Figure 2.19.
Sections D and Retrograde D
The combination of Section D with its retrograde (5'33-5'53") is a transitional area,
surrounding the point exactly three-quarters of the way through the piece (5'40.5") where
the prime and retrograde strands both reach their midpoints. In one regard, prepared by
the anomalies which used transpositions of D Material, this section is the lowest register in
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