The Balance of Order and Chaos—Music Woven with Diverse Associations

In the 1980s, György Ligeti heard the player piano works composed by Conlon Nancarrow (1912–1997), which exhibited complex rhythmic structures impossible for humans to perform. He praised them as being perfectly constructed yet emotional. Strongly stimulated by Nancarrow, Ligeti began composing etudes for living pianists in 1985.

Between the 1980s and around 2000, Ligeti wrote three project notebooks, which he kept until his death. One tendency discernible from these notes is his keen interest in world music. His interests were concentrated on the music of Africa and Asia. He was interested in the rituals associated with nature worship and magical beliefs, mask dances, percussion music, polyrhythms, asymmetrical rhythmic structures, and the complex vocal polyphony of the Pygmy hunter-gatherer people, all deeply rooted in various parts of Africa. He attended lectures by Simha Arom (b. 1930), a leading authority on African music. In Asia, he researched ritual music associated with weddings and funerals of mountain tribes in Thailand, Georgian polyphonic choral music and Krimanchuli, complex heterophony in Myanmar, and Gamelan music, Kecak, and shadow puppetry from Bali, Indonesia. He also made notes on popular music such as rock, techno, reggae, salsa, and rumba. Furthermore, he possessed deep knowledge not only in painting and architecture but also in organic chemistry, biochemistry, and fractal geometry.

The Etudes for Piano were created against the backdrop of Ligeti's overflowing knowledge. One might hesitate, wondering how complex the theories and calculations assembled within them are. Indeed, while he had a strong predilection for consistent numerical sequences and mathematical theories found in nature, his experience of disillusionment and despair after the socialist system he once believed in proved disappointing led him to reject supporting a single doctrine, ideology, or principle. In his speech at the Kyoto Prize award ceremony in 2001, he stated that without rules and consistency, chaotic works would emerge, but if rules were too strict, they would kill the “spirit” of the music. Ligeti, therefore, semi-adhered to and semi-deviated from the rules he himself chose, reflecting his unique associations in his music.

Ligeti stated: “My music is not pure. It is contaminated by a multitude of crazy associations. This is because I think very synesthetically. I always imagine sounds from shapes, and shapes from colors and sounds. As a result, painting, literature, certain academic aspects, daily life, political aspects, and many other things actually play quite an important role for me. [...] My music is by no means program music, but it carries very strong associations.” 1

In fact, each piece in the Etudes for Piano is given a title that evokes associations. Furthermore, when one sees the drafts of each work, their colorfulness is striking. To grasp the complex polyrhythms and new rhythmic periodicities that arise when different rhythms such as 2, 3, 4, and 5 are superimposed simultaneously, Ligeti drew vertical lines on the staves with pencils of various colors such as red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and black. He began to favor using rainbow pencils from the time he started composing the piano etudes, and colorful grids began to interweave in the drafts of his polyrhythmic works. Ligeti skillfully manipulated the balance between order and chaos—how to set rules and then deviate from them—while weaving diverse associations into the fabric of his music.

Ligeti's etudes are not piano pieces that conform to the body's mechanics; they possess a certain unplayability. While he was astonished and fascinated by the perfect performances executed by player pianos, he did not desire mechanical, inhuman performances. Rather, he sought performances that, despite being like a mechanical pianist, conveyed intense humanity. The errors of living humans, which evoke emotional associations despite being systematically constructed, are likely the core of Ligeti's moving and captivating music.

1 Klüppelholz, Werner. 1984 “Was ist musikalische Bildung?: Werner Klüppelholz im Gespräch mit György Ligeti”, Musikalische Zeitfragen 14, p. 70.