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Maintaining Disorder: Some Technical and Aesthetic Issues Involved in the Performance of Ligeti's Études for Piano

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 31; Issue: 2-3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/07494467.2012.717359

1477-2256

I. Pace,

Music Technology and Sound Studies

Abstract This article examines some of the particular questions and associated strategies concerning matters of rhythm, perceived metre, notation, accentuation, line, physical approach to the keyboard, pedalling and more in the performance of Ligeti's Études for piano. I relate these issues to those encountered in earlier repertoire, including works of Schumann, Liszt, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartók and Blacher, and argue that particular approaches and attitudes to both technical and musical matters in the context of these Études can fundamentally affect the concept of the music. A particular focus is upon issues of continuity and discontinuity, and the 'situation' of these works within particular pianistic and other traditions by virtue of the approach taken to performance. Keywords: LigetiPiano ÉtudesPerformance PracticeRhythmic CellsLinear Extraction Notes Examples of primers of this type would be Bartolozzi (Citation1967), Levine (Citation2002), Veale (Citation1998), Strange and Strange (Citation2001) and Henck (Citation1994). See, for example, many of the essays in Nonken (2002) and Webb (Citation2007). A few texts do entail a wider intellectual exploration, such as Holzaepfel (Citation2002) or Henck (Citation1980). See, for example, Wilson (Citation1992), pre-figured by various writings and interviews of Ligeti himself, such as Bouliane (Citation1989) and Ligeti (Citation1989). Only a few writers have begun to look somewhat more critically at the issues of exoticism and imperialism such ventures might entail, such as Scherzinger (Citation2006) or Bauer (Citation2008). Nancarrow, Monk and Evans are all mentioned in Ligeti (Citation1997a). Many English-language commentaries devote considerably more space given to American influences upon Ligeti's later work than other European contemporary developments amongst European composers, as, for example, in Steinitz (Citation2003). Explored in most detail in Schütz (Citation1997). Manfred Stahnke recalls how Ligeti used to play recordings of music of the ars subtilior in his Hamburg classes. See Stahnke (Citation2011, p. 228). An especially prominent exposition of this view in general can be found in Clendinning (Citation2001). This produces fascination on the part of such writers as Dibelius (Citation1994, pp. 214–223), Steinitz (Citation1996), Schütz (Citation1996) and Bader (Citation2005). Rachel Beckles Willson, however, shrewdly responds to other commentators' awe-filled bewilderment 'But is this entrapping not the point, in fact? Are the pieces not mask?'. See Beckles Willson (Citation2007, pp. 184–185). See Taylor (Citation1994) and Steinitz (Citation2003, pp. 294–299). This subject receives more sophisticated treatment through the course of Bauer (Citation2011). To varying degrees, I would include in this category Wilson (Citation1992), Dibelius (Citation1994), Floros (Citation1996), Griffiths (Citation1997) and Steinitz (Citation2003). For some examples of 'the ease with which Ligeti's rhetorical manners infiltrate the prose of his commentators', and Ligeti's simultaneous evocation and disavowal of aesthetic movements, see Wilson (Citation2004). Nowhere more strongly than in Gann (Citation1997), but also in a good deal of other literature in various languages. Constructions of 'America' versus 'Europe' in the historiography of post-1945 music have rarely been explored by scholars; one take on this can be found in my paper, Pace (Citation2010). This latter strategy has gained currency in particular with the growth of an anti-modernist strain in musicology dealing with the cold war; examples include Brody (Citation1993), Stonor Saunders (Citation1999) and Taruskin (Citation2005). Amongst various critiques of these arguments are Rosen (Citation2011) and Pace (Citation2011). See Ligeti's own account of this in interview Dibelius (Citation1994, p. 262); the view of Ligeti as a martyr at the hands of the avant-garde is enthusiastically taken up in Steinitz (Citation2003, p. 251). A more nuanced view of Ligeti's relationship towards avant-garde traditions at this point can be found Toop (Citation1999), Sabbe (Citation1993) and, especially, Wilson (Citation2004). However, see also Stahnke (Citation2011, pp. 231–232), on Ligeti's adversarial stance towards 'the old avant-garde' during his teaching. For an overview of the German debate, see Tillman (Citation2002). Ligeti quoted in Wilson (Citation1998), cited in Wilson (Citation2004, p. 12). Ligeti and Beyer (Citation2000, p. 8). Later in this interview (originally published in 1992–1993), Ligeti says 'the direction that the French call retro, this postmodern glance backward, is false and kitsch though also the avant-garde has become professorial' (p. 12). This possibility is asserted rather more forcefully than I would in Wilson (Citation2004, pp. 7–9), evoking Bourdieu and describing Ligeti's statements as 'performative rhetoric'. One of the most valiant attempts at doing so can be found in Kramer (Citation2002, pp. 7–20). Nonetheless, this remains deeply problematic as most of the attributes Kramer employs can be found in many earlier musics. I refer in this article to the 'postmodern' purely to indicate the rhetorical term employed by various writers. Searby (Citation1997, p. 9) argues for a moderate position, describing a postmodernist label as 'misleading', though describing Ligeti's later compositional approach as 'more conservative'. Drott is also sceptical about the term 'postmodern', but contrasts the later work with 'the (late) modernist concern for stylistic consistency and purity, leaning instead towards a more inclusive musical language' (2003, p. 285), without clearly defining which word is considered '(late) modernist'. The most subtle treatment can be found in Wilson (Citation2004, pp. 7–16). This attitude is prominent in a number of writings on the works by performers, such as Chen (Citation2007). At least in those études which finish at rapid tempi; the quasi-cadential endings of 'Cordes à vide', 'Fém', 'En suspens', 'Pour Irina' and 'Canon' (and also 'Vertige' and 'Entrelacs') have a much greater degree of finality. Only 'Arc-en-ciel' and to some extent 'White on White' and '[Agrave] Bout de Souffle' resist such a type of ending. Which, however, is not to say that milder elements of the same cannot be found in various earlier music. Most reviews of this book were wholly praiseworthy, such as Bauer (Citation2006), Whittall (Citation2003) and Clendinning (Citation2004), mostly on account of its including new biographical material and some sketch-based. Bauer does however acknowledge that the book at times 'reads almost like a ghosted autobiography' and that 'The author's closeness to the composer precludes an overtly critical treatment of Ligeti's career' (p. 308). For various examples of this, see Pace (Citation2009, pp. 81–100). Steinitz (Citation2003, p. 303). Elsewhere Steinitz uses a very similar piece of prose to describe 'Vertige', 'L'éscalier' and 'Coloana infinită': 'These various musical spirals suggest an infinity of motion capable of endless repetition. Each cascades us into a fantastic whirlpool of giddy hallucination, as if the ground itself were turning, and the listener a spinning figure on a revolving plane' (Steinitz, Citation1996, p. 17). On a distrust of ambiguity in English-language discourse around new music and a striving for 'the positivist's rhetoric' compared to German discourse (treated with an equal degree of scepticism), see Hocking (Citation1995). Bauer (Citation2006, p. 309) does comment upon 'a sometimes frustrating reliance on fuzzy sound bites in lieu of explication'. Steinitz (Citation1996, p. 15). Arnold Whittall argues that this replaces the dialectic between 'clocks' and 'clouds' in Ligeti's earlier works. See Whittall (Citation2000, p. 300). As Whittall (Citation2000, p. 300) puts it, 'the later Ligeti is rather more subtly modernistic than the earlier one'. As well as greater degrees of consonance and stability in other ways. For a detailed consideration of how these factors are made manifest, see Knop (Citation2007). Whittall (Citation2000, p. 300). Griffiths (Citation1997, pp. 119–120) arrives at a similar conclusion. At least in works published since the mid-1960s; earlier histories, in various languages, were more inclined to divide music by country, a reflection of the importance of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and the concept of 'Weltmusik' during the first post-war decades. Except for a few exceptions such as 'Wedding Day and Night' or 'The Lovely Girls of Budapest', which alternate groups of 3/4 and 2/4 bars; only 'The Old Shepherd' very briefly anticipates Bartók's later use of expanding and contracting cells. Beckles Willson (Citation2007, pp. 183–184) also suggests that this piece may have influenced 'Touches bloquées'. See Fearn (Citation1990, pp. 17–25) on the importance of this work for Maderna. See Von Blumröder (Citation1993, pp. 39–41), for a discussion of this unpublished dissertation. As can be gauged from the programmes in Borio and Danuser (1997, pp. 533–576). As I believe is made clear through a comparison of the pianistic figuration of the second movements of either work, and that of the third movement of Bartók's Suite with the fourth movement of Hartmann's Sonata. There are also some comparable examples of variable metre in Blacher's 24 Preludes of 1974, but nothing so starkly foreshadowing Ligeti's work. Michael Searby, on the other hand, draws attention to the terraced dynamics for individual notes (citing Amy Bauer's relating of this to Messiaen's Mode de valeurs et intensités: see Bauer, Citation1997, p. 368) and suggests instead a range of multilayered strands of individual pitches or octaves, 'very much like a carillon'. See Searby (Citation2010, p. 92). The same can be said of the chords at the end of 'Fém'; Beckles Willson compares these with the opening of Bartók's Third Piano Concerto, but presumably means the opening of the slow movement of the Second. See Beckles Willson (Citation2007, p. 183). Paul Griffiths argues that the processes to be found in the Études can be traced back to Monument and Continuum, with the addition of some tonal harmonic elements. See Griffiths (Citation2011, p. 361). However, this does not account for some of the other new techniques which Ligeti employs in the Études, which I describe here. Christine Mennesson identifies 'Désordre', 'Automne à Varsovie', 'Fém', 'Entrelacs' and 'L'escalier du diable' as the principal études based around rhythmic ambiguity, but in the section of her article devoted to performance, there is little about how to make this most apparent. See Mennesson (Citation2000, especially pp. 79–80, 87–90). And this is indeed the approach I myself have taken when performing this piece up until reconsidering it in the context of preparing this article. Reproduced in Wilson (Citation1992, pp. 79–82); the opening is also printed in Dibelius (Citation1994, p.231). However, in that version printed in Ferguson (Citation1993), the brackets have been removed, seemingly without trace, suggesting they were added to one copy, but not another. Ligeti (Citation1988). The original text, 'Études pour piano—Premier livre', can be found in Ligeti and Lichtenfeld (Citation2007). See, for example, Wilson (Citation1992, p. 65), Dibelius (Citation1994, pp. 225–227), Floros (Citation1996, p. 180), Griffiths (Citation1997, p. 121), Lobanova (Citation2002, pp. 290–295), Steinitz (Citation2003, p. 300) and Taylor (Citation2003). See also Bauer (Citation2011, p. 90) for a short commentary on this model. Thalberg's effect in this respect has been explored by numerous scholars and writers on nineteenth-century pianism. See Hominick (Citation1991), Gooley (Citation2004) and Hamilton (Citation1998, Citation2008, pp. 158–161). This is a technique employed by various pianists and pedagogues, described most clearly in Sándor (Citation1981). By now he had a more modern and stronger Érard in his house in Weimar. See Walker (Citation1989, pp. 74–77). The French and English first editions differ somewhat in terms of the phrasing marks in both hands and some dynamics, but not in terms of the beaming. All can be viewed at http://www.cfeo.org.uk/apps/ (accessed 16 June 2012). Taylor (Citation2003, pp. 84–85) cites an example of a 'complex hemiola' from Chopin's Ballade No. 4 in F minor, op. 52, bars 175–176 (also cited a year earlier in Tsong, Citation2002, pp. 37–38), but this essentially consists of a melodic extraction from the tessitural peaks of Chopin's line, it belongs more to the Thalbergian model rather than the more intricate type of linear extraction I am examining. Ligeti cited the use of hemiolas in this work as a starting point for the conception of 'Automne à Varsovie', in Bouliane (Citation1989, p. 54); another example from this work is considered in more detail in Lobanova (Citation2002, pp. 292–295). For one examination of the process of linear extraction in this piece alongside other aspects of pitch, see Sabbe (Citation1987, pp. 37–45). As pointed out in Steinitz (Citation2003, p. 282). For example, the most detailed study of the second book of the Études—Chang (Citation2007)—simply provides a table of different articulative types and a few very general comments about the uses to which they are put (pp. 175–176). But not necessarily simple chromatic scales. Clifton Callender uses advanced analytical techniques to discern multiple simultaneous laments from the first bars, claiming 'all of these lines are clearly audible and are driving the harmonic progression' (p.12). However, his analysis takes no account of the notated accentuation; nor does that of Alessandra Morresi. See Callender (Citation2007), Morresi (2002, pp. 112–119). Interestingly, this passage does not receive any special attention in some of the analyses ofthis work, such as Floros (Citation1996, pp. 181–183), Rümenapp (Citation1997) or Morresi (2002, pp.120–145), though Taylor (Citation1994, p.80) sees bar 85 as the culmination of an interplay between disparate lines. See Stahnke (Citation2011, pp. 236–242), for one of the more interesting accounts of the harmonic results of this process of extraction. On the connection with Shepard's scale, see also Weber (Citation1994) and Schneider (Citation2005).