Ligeti, György : Etudes pour piano, premier livre(No.7-14)
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Genre：etude
Total Playing Time：21 min 00 sec
Copyright：Under Copyright Protection
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Author : Okumura, Kyoko
Last Updated: April 30, 2015
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Author : Okumura, Kyoko
The Balance of Order and Chaos—Music Woven with Diverse Associations
In the 1980s, 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 also 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 in 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. We might hesitate, wondering how complex the theories and calculations assembled within them are. Indeed, he had a strong predilection for consistent numerical sequences and mathematical theories found in nature, but having experienced the disappointment and despair of a socialist system he once believed in, he refused to endorse a single doctrine, ideology, or principle. In his speech at the Kyoto Prize 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, reflected his unique associations in his music by partly adhering to and partly deviating from the rules he himself chose.
Ligeti stated: "My music is not pure. It is contaminated by many crazy associations. This is because I think very synesthetically. I always imagine sounds from shapes, and shapes from colors or 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. [omission] 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 aligned with the body's mechanics; they possess a certain unplayability. While he was astonished and fascinated by the perfect performance executed by player pianos, he did not desire mechanical, inhuman performances. Rather, he sought performances that, despite being mechanically structured, 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.
Author : Okumura, Kyoko
Last Updated: April 30, 2015
[Open]
Author : Okumura, Kyoko
Piano Etudes, Book 2 (1988-1994)
No. 7, 'Galamb borong' (Sad Pigeon)
Vivacissimo luminoso, legato possible. Dedicated to Ulrich Eckhardt. Composed, inspired by Debussy's 'Cloches à travers les feuilles' (Bells through the Leaves), No. 1 from Images, Book 2. It is said that Debussy incorporated the whole-tone scale into his works after hearing Gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. In this piece, Ligeti superimposes two different whole-tone scales, one for the right hand and one for the left.
No. 8, 'Fém' (Metal)
Vivace risoluto, con vigore. Dedicated to Volker Banfield. Sparkling, metallic perfect fifth chords are played with great rhythm, accented freely (ad lib.). Ligeti initially intended to title it 'Fifths'. Not limited to this piece, the time signatures and bar lines written in Ligeti's Etudes are merely convenient guides for notation; the actual meter and rhythm are highly fluid. This piece can be said to be one of those that prominently feature the diversity of polyrhythms.
No. 9, 'Vertige' (Vertigo)
Prestissimo sempre molto legato. Dedicated to Mauricio Kagel (1931-2008), an Argentine-Jewish composer. Almost the entire piece is constructed from descending chromatic scales. It features a multi-layered canonic structure where descending chromatic scales of various lengths are continuously superimposed, much like new waves piling up one after another on incoming and receding waves.
No. 10, 'Der Zauberlehrling' (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
Prestissimo, staccatissimo, leggierissimo. Dedicated to Pierre-Laurent Aimard (b. 1957), known as a performer of contemporary piano works. Its style resembles that of Minimal Music, a genre of contemporary music that flourished mainly in the United States from the 1960s. The opening features a pattern of only two notes rapidly repeated by both hands, but new notes are gradually added, and various phases emerge one after another. It concludes with a rapid descent, like a whirlwind.
No. 11, 'En Suspens' (In Suspense / Precariously)
Andante con moto. Dedicated to György Kurtág (b. 1926), a Hungarian composer from Romania and a compatriot friend of Ligeti. Ligeti initially considered titling this piece after Boris Vian's (1920-1959) novel 'L'Arrache-coeur' (Heartsnatcher) (1953), a French writer known for his avant-garde style. From the quietly swaying superposition of long notes, occasional flowing melodic lines appear but quickly vanish. It ends somewhat hollowly and without resolution.
No. 12, 'Entrelacs' (Interlacings)
Vivacissimo molto ritmico. Dedicated to Pierre-Laurent Aimard. The title refers to 'interwoven ornamentation' or 'interlaced designs' found in various arts and architecture. Against a background of continuous sixteenth-note figural repetitions played from the beginning, various note values are superimposed, creating complex polymetrics.
No. 13, 'L'escalier du diable' (The Devil's Staircase)
Presto legato, ma leggier. Dedicated to Volker Banfield. Ligeti, during a six-week stay in Santa Monica, California, enjoyed cycling along the Pacific coast daily, but one morning after an El Niño event, he was caught in a furious storm and struggled to return to his apartment. This piece was composed, inspired by that experience of the furious storm. Although he knew that the Cantor set is called 'the Devil's Staircase,' he used the title metaphorically for this piece. Patterns based on rhythmic modules of 7 (2+2+3), 9 (2+2+2+3), and 11 (2+2+2+2+3) relentlessly ascend from bottom to top, reaching a climax with the loudest possible dynamic (eight fortes).
No. 14, 'Coloana infinită' (Infinite Column) and No. 14A, 'Coloana fără sfârşit' (Endless Column)
Presto possibile, tempestoso confuoco. Dedicated to Vincent Meyer. The titles of both these pieces are derived from the 35-meter column created in a Minimal Art style in 1937 by Constantin Brâncuși (1876-1957), a leading 20th-century sculptor from Romania. According to Brâncuși, the Infinite Column is composed of the repetition of simple units, and it is said that it does not lose its characteristic as an infinite column no matter where it is cut. Brâncuși referred to the column by both names: 'Infinite Column' and 'Endless Column'. No. 14A was composed first, but pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard asked Ligeti to simplify the texture, as it was too difficult for a human pianist. As a result, in No. 14, the number of notes and the density of intervals were reduced, and the harmony was also altered.
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