New wine in old bottles: structural and aesthetic innovation in the lamento movement of gyorgy ligeti's horn trio

Dissatisfied with what he felt was the too-academic avant-garde in the early 1980s, György Ligeti worked to create a new personal style of composition that combined cutting-edge formal techniques with more traditional harmonic/melodic material. The product of this effort was the Horn Trio, written in 1982. This work is noted as much for its musical heritage in Brahms and Beethoven as it is for its departures from that tradition. The Horn Trio marks a general turning-away from his previous sound-mass focused compositions to a more clearly defined harmonic/melodic style. Ligeti's combination of the new and the old can be viewed especially clearly in the work's finale: Lamento. Some elements that are retained from Ligeti's previous style include exhaustion/saturation of range and texture, and juxtaposition of extremes-high against low, loud against soft, thick against thin, and other similar contrasts. Ligeti's new influences in this movement are quite traditional: passacaglia and lament. However, the ways in which he develops and expands these two elements are unorthodox. They are stripped of their conventional applications and elaborated to the point of exhaustion. Other elements that play an increasingly important role in Ligeti's later compositions are also explored. Influences like nonstandard tunings, fractals, Shepard Scales, and M.C. Escher drawings are applied in this movement, some for the first time in Ligeti's output. iv Ligeti's creative energy in the Lamento movement is focused on using small gestures to foreshadow and create large-scale structures and patterns. The movement's initial presentation of the passacaglia foreshadows nearly every other subsequent musical event. Because of this, the Schoenbergian concepts of Grundgestalt and developing variation are very helpful to understanding and describing the music. Because the passacaglia and lament are so ingrained into the fabric of the music, the piece maintains a strong sense of coherence and unity despite the continuous development of each of these elements. As a result, Ligeti is able to create an aesthetically pleasing and intellectually stimulating piece of music that contains elements of both the avant-garde and older musical tradition, but that strictly conforms to neither and is entirely unique.

NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES: STRUCTURAL AND AESTHETIC INNOVATION IN THE LAMENTO MOVEMENT OF GYÖRGY LIGETI’S HORN TRIO by Matthew Russell Durrant A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Music The University of Utah December 2019 Copyright © Matthew Russell Durrant 2019 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of Matthew Russell Durrant has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Steven Roens , Chair 8/23/2019 Michael Chikinda , Member 5/2/2019 Catherine Mayes , Member 5/2/2019 Keith Bartholomew , Member 5/2/2019 Sara Bakker , Member 5/2/2019 and by Miguel Chuaqui the Department/College/School of and by David B. Kieda, Dean of The Graduate School. Date Approved Date Approved Date Approved Date Approved Date Approved , Chair/Dean of Music ABSTRACT Dissatisfied with what he felt was the too-academic avant-garde in the early 1980s, György Ligeti worked to create a new personal style of composition that combined cutting-edge formal techniques with more traditional harmonic/melodic material. The product of this effort was the Horn Trio, written in 1982. This work is noted as much for its musical heritage in Brahms and Beethoven as it is for its departures from that tradition. The Horn Trio marks a general turning-away from his previous sound-mass focused compositions to a more clearly defined harmonic/melodic style. Ligeti’s combination of the new and the old can be viewed especially clearly in the work’s finale: Lamento. Some elements that are retained from Ligeti’s previous style include exhaustion/saturation of range and texture, and juxtaposition of extremes–high against low, loud against soft, thick against thin, and other similar contrasts. Ligeti’s new influences in this movement are quite traditional: passacaglia and lament. However, the ways in which he develops and expands these two elements are unorthodox. They are stripped of their conventional applications and elaborated to the point of exhaustion. Other elements that play an increasingly important role in Ligeti’s later compositions are also explored. Influences like nonstandard tunings, fractals, Shepard Scales, and M.C. Escher drawings are applied in this movement, some for the first time in Ligeti’s output. Ligeti’s creative energy in the Lamento movement is focused on using small gestures to foreshadow and create large-scale structures and patterns. The movement’s initial presentation of the passacaglia foreshadows nearly every other subsequent musical event. Because of this, the Schoenbergian concepts of Grundgestalt and developing variation are very helpful to understanding and describing the music. Because the passacaglia and lament are so ingrained into the fabric of the music, the piece maintains a strong sense of coherence and unity despite the continuous development of each of these elements. As a result, Ligeti is able to create an aesthetically pleasing and intellectually stimulating piece of music that contains elements of both the avant-garde and older musical tradition, but that strictly conforms to neither and is entirely unique. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………iii I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………………………………………1 II. BACKGROUND……………………………………………………………….………………………………………..…4 III. CHARACTERISTICS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PASSACAGLIA………………………………….9 IV. CHARACTERISTICS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE LAMENT MOTIVE………………………….23 V. STRUCTURAL INTERACTIONS OF THE LAMENT MOTIVE AND PASSACAGLIA…………….35 VI. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS………………………………………………………………………………………..49 VII. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………………………………....56 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……59 I. INTRODUCTION As a central figure of the European avant-garde from the 1950s to 1970s, György Ligeti (1923-2006) was well known and respected for his unique approach to texture and polyphony. Textural music like Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna, and Lontano became his trademark during this time as he never truly embraced the serialist currents of postWorld War II Europe. After the premiere of his opera Le Grand Macabre in 1978, it seems Ligeti suffered from an extended writers block lasting about seven years. 1 During this time, he composed very little, but what he did produce during this period and afterwards is strikingly different from his earlier output. Ligeti appears to have gone through a stylistic crisis as he sought to distance himself from avant-garde musical styles he felt had become too academic or mainstream, including his own previous efforts. His struggle was to find a style that was fresh, unique, and, not to continue to compose in the old avant-garde clichés, but also not to lapse into back-to-earlier-styles . . . I have been trying to find an answer for myself personally–a music that is not a rumination of the past, not even the avant-garde past. 1 Richard Steinitz. “À qui en homage? Genesis of the Piano Concerto and Horn Trio.” In Györgi Ligeti: of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds, ed. Louise Duchesneau and Wolfgang Marx (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2011), 169. 2 He went on to clarify, I have in mind a strongly affective, contrapuntally and metrically very complex music, labyrinthine in its ramifications with melodic figures audible through it, but without any ‘back-to’ gesture, not tonal, but not atonal, either.2 An examination of Ligeti’s works after Le Grand Macabre reveals that he did indeed find a new compositional language, or as he put it, a “third way”, which avoids the clichés of both neo-Romanticism and what he felt was the too-academic avant-garde. 3 This new language combines triadic harmonies and distinguishable melodic lines, while retaining much of Ligeti’s older, sound-mass compositional style and experimental structures. Even though Ligeti struggled to compose in the early 1980s, he did produce one particularly remarkable piece in 1982, the Horn Trio. This work is indeed very different from anything he had written up to this point. True to his word, the Trio is both metrically and contrapuntally complex with very audible melodic figures throughout. However, even though Ligeti’s stated ambition was to avoid any reference to past styles and genres, it is difficult to ignore the obvious influences of the past on the Trio’s form and style. Clear melodic lines, ternary forms, and even the dedication Hommage á Brahms make this work seem anathema to Ligeti’s earlier reputation for experimentation. So different was this work that it proved quite controversial and angered many of his colleagues at the time, who perceived it as being too regressive and an abandonment of modernist ideals.4 And yet, there is much in the Horn Trio that Constantin Floros. György Ligeti: Beyond Avant-garde and Postmodernism, trans. Ernest BernhardtKabisch (PL Academic Research, 2014), 144. 3 Mike Searby, "Ligeti's 'Third Way': 'Non-Atonal' Elements in the Horn Trio," Tempo, no. 216 (2001): 17. http://www.jstor.org/stable/946727. 4 Richard Steinitz. György Ligeti: Music of the Imagination (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 2003), 251. 2 3 draws upon new ideas and influences in Ligeti’s life and combines them with his previous compositional practices. Even though on the surface the Horn Trio seems to be a clear break from his avant-garde past, many of Ligeti’s older techniques are still present as the background scaffolding upon with new materials are overlaid, resulting in a fresh sound. In this way, the Horn Trio can be thought of as a bridge between his older avant-garde style and what his later style would become. II. BACKGROUND The Horn Trio was commissioned by the city of Hamburg for the 150th anniversary of Brahms’s birth. Initially, the request was for Ligeti to write a companion piece to Brahms’s Horn Trio including quotations and musical references to that work. However, Ligeti objected to the idea of using borrowed material and directly referencing the past, and instead convinced the commissioning committee to accept a compromise by adding the dedication Hommage á Brahms. 5 While Ligeti rejected the idea of referencing Brahms’s music, this Trio is not without its debts to past composers, Beethoven in particular. 6 Regardless of Ligeti’s stated desire to avoid referencing Brahms in any way, the work is not without its connections to the latter’s trio. Ligeti was certainly familiar with Brahms’s trio and while he did not directly reference any of its thematic material, there is evidence to suggest that various aspects of the original trio were on Ligeti’s mind as he composed his own. Upon first listening and observation, the four movements of the Horn Trio seem to be unrelated, but a unifying concept ties them together – horn fifths. Ligeti mentions that when the possibility of writing a horn trio was presented to him, “somewhere inside my head I heard the sound of a horn as if coming from a distant forest in a fairy 5 6 Steinitz, Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds, 181-182. Ibid. 189, 196. 5 tale . . .”. 7 The problem, then, was how to use this very traditional idiom without it becoming a blatant “back-to” gesture and thus a betrayal of his artistic convictions. Ligeti accomplishes this by focusing on the horn-fifths gesture as a sequence of dyads, which mimic but don’t replicate the traditional horn-fifths pattern of intervals: major third, perfect fifth, and minor sixth (ex. 1). Example 1 – Horn fifths intervals However, contrary to his assertions that he wished to avoid all references to the past, the particular horn-fifths germ he chose to use seems to be explicitly tied to the Lebewohl motive of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Opus 81a Les Adieux (ex. 2). 8 While he does not quote it note-for-note, the composer’s own admission that he chose to use a “skewed variant” of this motive suggests that it might have been his intention to derive material from the Beethoven. 9 György Ligeti and Péter Várnai, interview, 1978, in Ligeti in Conversation, ed. Sir William Glock (London: Eulenburg Books, 1983), 22. 8 John Daniel Cuciurean, “A Theory of Pitch, Rhythm, and Intertextual Allusion for the Late Music of Györgi Ligeti” (PhD dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo, 2000), 156. 9 Floros, 145-146. 7 6 Example 2 – Lebewohl theme from Beethoven’s Les Adieux Piano Sonata Op 81a In order to diminish both the tonal and historical implications of the horn-fifths motive, Ligeti makes sure they do not conform to their traditional intervallic formula. He achieves his “skewed variant” by altering the perfect fifth by a half-step, resulting in a major third, tritone, and minor sixth as seen at the opening of the piece (ex. 3). Example 3 – Opening of Ligeti’s Horn Trio Ligeti’s early sketches and notes about the work reveal that he was thinking of the hornfifths germ as “a kind of two-part chorale” as opposed to just a simple melodic 7 gesture.10 Using dyads as a foundation frees the texture from the need to conform to functional, triadic harmony and means that Ligeti was able to juxtapose consonance and dissonance freely, resulting in a kind of “non-tonal diatonicism”.11 The fourth movement, Lamento, is particularly noteworthy for its use of this technique and for how the skewed horn fifths drive the form and structure of the movement. It is a study in variation, transformation, and juxtaposition of extremes. It is also an excellent example of how various aspects of Ligeti’s older style are manifested differently in his newer style. Similarly, to the other three movements, the skewed horn-fifths germ is still at play in this movement but is now transformed into a passacaglia that serves as the underpinning of the entire movement. Additionally, like the thematic unity shared by the four movements of Brahms’s trio, Ligeti uses the horn fifths gesture in a similar way to link the four movements of his own trio together. During the late nineteenth and into the twentieth century, the passacaglia saw a revival of interest from a variety of composers. The final movement of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony written in 1884-85 is a spectacular passacaglia. Ravel included one as the second movement of his Trio in A minor in 1914. Copland wrote one for piano in 192122. Britten put one in Peter Grimes in 1945. And even Stravinsky wrote a passacaglia for his Septet in 1952-53. What they all have in common is an interpretation of the passacaglia as a slow ostinato bass with variations on top of it, originating mostly from Steinitz, Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds, 184 Non-tonal diatonicism uses the vocabulary of diatonic harmony (triads, seventh chords, etc.), but frees it from the syntax of functional tonality. For a detailed discussion of this concept, see: Stephen Andrew Taylor, “The Lamento Motif: Metamorphosis in Ligeti’s Late Style” (DMA dissertation, Cornell University, 1994), 22. 10 11 8 Bach’s treatment in the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor for organ. 12 Ligeti’s passacaglia uses the horn-fifths germ as a rhythmic ostinato figure and conforms to the slow tempo associated with passacaglias of this type. While this ostinato figure forms the foundation of the movement, it does not, however, serve as an harmonically functional bass in any way. The movement revolves around two simple ideas that, when added together, create a complex texture. These two main ingredients are, first, the slowly unfolding passacaglia foundation that I will refer to as the passacaglia motive, or simply the passacaglia, and second, a highly chromatic descending melody derived from the upper pitches of the passacaglia as presented in the first five measures. I will refer to this figure as the lament motive or the chromatic lament. All other events within the movement can be traced back to the development and transformation of these two basic ingredients. Because nearly every aspect of the work can be traced back in some manner to the opening five bars, Schoenberg’s concepts of Grundgestalt and developing variation are very helpful in understanding how the movement works. In this paper, I will address the development of the passacaglia, followed by issues related to the lament, and will then discuss their interactions as a whole. Alexander Silbiger, 2001 "Chaconne." Grove Music Online. 23 Mar. 2019. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo9781561592630-e-0000005354. 12 III. CHARACTERISTICS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PASSACAGLIA The movement opens with the violin sounding a simple statement of the skewed horn-fifths idea, which has been expanded by two more dyads, for a total of five dyads per cycle (ex. 4). Using the traditional descending major third – perfect fifth – minor sixth horn-fifths formula as a pattern, it is easy to see Ligeti’s alterations. In place of the traditional intervals, a minor third – tritone – minor sixth are sounded instead (refer to ex. 3). The extra two dyads can be explained by looking at how they function in conjunction with the first three. If the pattern of the horn-fifths motive is reduced to generic intervallic terms, it is 3 – 5 – 6. If that pattern is reversed, 6 – 5 – 3, the last two dyads of the passacaglia cycle fit perfectly. Essentially, they form a lopsided retrograde to the horn-fifths pattern using the minor sixth in the center as a pivot point, the fourth dyad being a perfect fifth and the corresponding second one an augmented fourth (ex. 5). Example 4 – Passacaglia 10 Additionally, the pitch material is entirely different from that of the first two dyads since the mostly chromatic descent in the upper voice is preserved through all five dyads of the cycle. And yet, because of the harmonic intervals of the horn-fifths pattern upon which it is based, Ligeti is able to summon the idea of retrograde without actually making it a perfectly symmetrically reversed pattern. Example 5 – Quasi-retrograde of passacaglia figure More importantly, the intervals in the latter half of the passacaglia cycle have undergone a transformation, making them a half-step wider than their counterparts in the first half: The minor third at the beginning becomes a major third at the end, and the augmented fourth becomes a perfect fifth. These first five measures are a perfect summation of some of the common threads holding the movement together: non-tonal diatonicism, asymmetrical symmetry, and melodic/intervallic transformation. The list reads like a string of oxymorons, but that is precisely what is so interesting about it. Ligeti’s way of referencing the past without making any overt “back-to” gestures is through distortion, 11 contradiction, and subversion of classical tropes. Perhaps Ligeti’s greatest distortion in this movement is the way he treats the idea of passacaglia as a compositional technique. He separates it from most of its historical – and all of its harmonic – implications, leaving it open for development in other ways. Ligeti seems preoccupied with only the core identity of passacaglia as an ever-present ostinato; a background upon which layers can be added, and even this is challenged in the movement. Stripping the concept down to this bare minimum allows for a great deal of innovation and reinterpretation as it is no longer tethered to functional harmony and phrase structure. However, separating the passacaglia from harmonic function makes it difficult to give it context and understand how it forms the foundation of the movement. The key to understanding how it works lies in repetition and variation instead of harmony. This is why Schoenberg’s Grundgestalt idea is effective in clarifying how the movement works. It is only in these first five measures that the passacaglia theme is clearly exposed both aurally and visually, but this first statement also contains much of the DNA of the entire movement. As Schoenberg put it, “all the shapes appearing in [the music] are foreseen in the theme”.13 Things like registral extremes, intensity, long-range voice leading, development, and overall form can all be traced back to the characteristics of the horn- Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea: Selected Writings, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 290. “Whatever happens in a piece of music is the endless reshaping of the basic shape … There is nothing in a piece of music but what comes from the theme, springs from it and can be traced back to it; to put it still more severely, nothing but the theme itself. Or, all the shapes appearing in in a piece of music are foreseen in the theme.” 13 12 fifths as presented here. 14 In fact, the repetition of this basic motive is so prevalent throughout the movement that it can be found at every level, thus conforming to Schoenberg’s idea of “endless reshaping of the basic shape”. Ligeti was, of course, very much aware of this idea, but it is highly unlikely that he consciously chose to use Schoenberg as a model for the Horn Trio’s composition. It is instead far more likely that Ligeti arrived at a similar procedure independently. 15 While Schoenberg’s ideas would give rise to the school of serial composers that followed him, thematic and structural foreshadowing are integral parts of many styles of music and are not exclusive to serialism. Ligeti was actually quite critical of the techniques employed by the Second Viennese School, and felt that the compositional act itself was compromised by all the preplanning involved in serialism. 16 He preferred a more organic approach to composition and vocally resisted the notion of being influenced by past philosophies and stylistic ideas, always choosing to arrive at his own conclusions. And yet, he did not work in a vacuum by any means, constantly learning and absorbing ideas so that he had a vast reservoir of knowledge to draw upon. 17 The Lamento movement is a great example of how Ligeti used techniques that were similar in many respects to serialism but that allowed him to retain creative control over the compositional process without having everything predetermined. Nevertheless, the Grundgestalt concept is an effective way to guide analysis of the passacaglia. Amy Bauer, Ligeti’s Laments: Nostalgia, Exoticism, and the Absolute (Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2011), 173. 15 Richard Troop, György Ligeti (London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1999), 187-188. 16 Jonathan W. Bernard, “Inaudible Structures, Audible Music: Ligeti’s Problem, and His Solution”, Musical Analysis Vol. 6, No. 3 (Oct., 1987), 207-208. 17 Charles Wilson, “György Ligeti and the Rhetoric of Autonomy”, Twentieth Century Music Vol. 1, Iss. 1 (Mar 2004), 10-11. 14 13 With the idea of foreshadowing in mind, the asymmetrical retrograde of the passacaglia theme in the opening five bars deserves further examination as it relates to form. Compared to Ligeti’s earlier works, the Horn Trio is certainly more formally conservative, even going so far as to use ternary forms in some of the movements. 18 However, the Lamento movement seems to be more closely related to the registral wedge forms of his textural music from the 1960s and 1970s. 19 It is the intervallic content of the passacaglia that contains the DNA for the overall shape of the movement. The intervals of the passacaglia begin with the close interval of a third, expand to a sixth in the center, and then contract back to a third at the end. The gradual expansion and contraction of range and texture in this opening gesture is generally mirrored in the overall structure of the movement (ex. 6). This is quite clear when range alone is considered, as the movement expands from a fifth at the very beginning (E4 to B4) to the entire seven and a half octave range of the piano (A0 to C8) in measures 7377. After this enormous distance is covered, there is somewhat of a contraction of register that occurs for the remainder of the movement (ex. 7). The violin and horn are still quite widely spaced at the end (G1 to C6), but when the final cluster of the piano sounds in measure 100, that interval is reduced again until there is nothing left but a single pitch. 18 19 Bauer, 161-163. Ibid, 171 14 Example 6 – Graphic representation of wedge-like form of the Lamento movement Example 7 – Range expansion and contraction The intensity and texture of the movement also follow a similar contour, beginning simply and gradually expanding to a central point before contracting. At first, there are only three voices present in the texture, but once the piano is added in measure 6, the texture quickly thickens. This additive development process plays a crucial role in this movement. Ligeti chooses to develop the passacaglia by thickening the texture as more and more pitches are added to the original intervals presented in 15 measures 1 through 5, eventually resulting in dense pitch clusters. In keeping with Ligeti’s apparent interpretation of passacaglia as an ever-present ostinato with no harmonic function, the rhythm never changes so its additive development is entirely vertical. Beginning in about measure 46, the texture starts to grow so thick that the original dyads of the passacaglia become indistinguishable from the surrounding texture, eventually growing to a cluster in measure 68 with a total of fifteen individual voices in the passacaglia part alone. When the other voices occurring in this measure are added, there are 23 different voices occurring simultaneously (ex. 8). After this measure, the passacaglia is liquidated, the clusters disappear, and the texture thins down to only two voices (violin and horn) in measure 78. When the piano returns in measure 87, it has only three voices and is then reduced to two. Finally, in measure 100, there is a single A-Lydian cluster, which eventually dies down to a single voice, thus mirroring the intervallic expansion of the initial presentation of the passacaglia. Beyond the climax, the previously incessant presence of the passacaglia’s downbeat clusters is gone, having faded out by measure 73. The only remaining reference to the passacaglia occurs in measures 94 to 99 where the horn-fifths germ reappears but in a much-altered form. Here there are only four dyads instead of five and the intervals are slightly different. The passage now contains a major third, augmented fourth, diminished fifth, and another major third (ex. 9). Additionally, the rhythm is altered, and the dyads no longer occur on the downbeat. Nor do they last a full measure. It is as if, after all the energy of the music has been released, there is another weak attempt to restart the passacaglia, but it lacks the energy to continue. All that 16 remains is a warped echo of what it once was. For a passacaglia not to continue through to the end of the movement is highly unorthodox in the traditional sense, but this fits right into the themes of distortion and subversion in this work. Ligeti constantly sets up expectations, only to change their outcomes or challenge them directly. This is an instance of a direct challenge to the very notion that a passacaglia must be everpresent. Example 8 – Texture thickness Example 9 – Passacaglia “Echo” – m. 94-99 17 Ligeti’s use of clusters and his attention to texture recall his earlier works such as Atmosheres, Lux Aeterna, and Lontano. It seems then that even though he was reinventing his style in the 1980s, he did not wholly abandon his previous methods; he simply altered and adapted them to function in new ways. The textural works, like the ones mentioned above, were all written for large ensembles with the ability to sound a great number of voices at the same time. Compared to that, the trio of instruments used for the Lamento is far more limited, but Ligeti overcomes this challenge by pushing them to their absolute limits. Once an instrument has reached its limit, especially with regard to range, Ligeti blends it into another, creating a texture that sometimes treats all three instruments as one. The result is that all the instruments end up exhausting their entire range. Contrasting extreme registers and dynamics is part of what gives the movement its emotive power. Other aspects of the development of the passacaglia demonstrate this blending and exhaustion quite clearly and, as with other elements previously discussed, foreshadow the extremes of the entire composition. After the first five measures, the passacaglia begins a transformational process. Beginning in measure 6, the intervals in the second cycle of the passacaglia are inverted, only to return to their original position (but down an octave) for the third cycle. This sets up an alternating pattern where the intervals of the passacaglia switch between their original position and their inversions over and over throughout most of the movement (ex. 10). The cumulative effect is that the passacaglia continuously descends and occasionally must be reset to a higher octave. As presented at the beginning of the 18 movement, the passacaglia is near the lowest possible register of the violin, already at an extreme for that instrument. When the intervals are inverted in the second cycle, with the exception of the G3 in measure 6, the lower pitches of each dyad are too low for the violin to play. To solve this issue, Ligeti begins to hand off these pitches to the left hand of the piano in measure 7, and by the third cycle, the passacaglia has completely transitioned to the piano as it continues to sink lower (ex. 11). It finally reaches its lowest point (Db1) in measures 30-33. The Df1 is sustained through measure 33 while the rest of the passacaglia is suddenly transferred to a much higher octave on the piano in measure 31 (Eb4-7). The remaining cycles of the passacaglia continue to ascend from this point until it completely dissolves in measures 70-73 after reaching the highest possible pitch on the piano (C8). 19 Example 10 – Passacaglia cycles and inversion 20 Example 11 – Continuation of passacaglia in piano It’s curious that in measure 33, Ligeti chose to break off the descent of the passacaglia before it reached the lowest possible pitches of the piano since once the passacaglia has been transferred up in measure 31, it is apparent that his intent is to take it to the highest registral limit. In fact, the bass register of the piano is completely silent for 23 measures (mm. 34-56). During these measures, the music increases in both loudness and intensity but only in the upper registers of the instruments. When the bass register of the piano finally enters again in measure 57, it is not as part of the passacaglia, which is still ascending – it is a pedal tone, which serves to heighten the tension in the drive to the climax. Nevertheless, it is C1 serving as the pedal, which continues the descending chromatic line that was broken off on Db1 in measure 33. The C1 pedal is repeated for eleven measures before descending another half step to B0 in measure 68. While the B0 pedal is held for the next nine measures, the passacaglia finishes its final cycle on C8. Thus, the entire span of the keyboard is exhausted at this 21 point save two pitches, Bb0 and A0. These final two pitches are added when Bb0 is introduced in the right hand of the piano at the end of measure 75 and finally A0 in measure 76. By the middle of measure 77, only a single, quadruple-forte A0 is sounded and the exhaustion of the keyboard’s entire range is complete. It makes sense that instead of finishing off the lowest register early on, around the measure 33 cutoff, Ligeti would reserve this final descent for the climax of the work. The simultaneous extremes of range and dynamics occurring in the climax create the heightened emotion of the moment and would seem wholly out of place otherwise. Additionally, the location of this wide extreme in the center of the movement corresponds to the Grundgestalt set up by the passacaglia at the opening, where the widest of the five dyads also occurs in the center. Returning back to the point in measure 30 where the passacaglia is transferred to a much higher octave, a curious development begins. Each cycle of the passacaglia begins higher on the keyboard, but the actual pitches of the passacaglia continue forming a descending line, which creates somewhat of a paradox–a line that constantly descends but always gets higher in register. Ligeti’s composition of the Lamento movement was not focused on creating this illusion, but it is known that a fascination with such things was growing in his mind since at least the 1970s. During this decade, he came across the drawings of M.C. Escher whose impossible constructions and transformational drawings had a profound effect upon him. Ligeti found the paradoxes shown in Escher’s works such as Ascending-Descending and Waterfall particularly appealing, and these concepts directly influenced several of his subsequent works, 22 including San Francisco Polyphony (1974) and Monument-Selbstportait-Bewegung (1976). 20 Additionally, in 1973, he was introduced to Jean-Claude Risset’s work with Shepard scales.21 The illusions of these scales and Escher’s drawings are remarkably quite similar to one another. For example, an excellent visual representation of how a Shepard scale works is Escher’s Waterfall, with its endless and perplexing loop of water, always falling but somehow always returning to the top of the waterfall to fall again.22 A decade later and almost immediately following the composition of the Horn Trio, Ligeti was introduced to another similar marvel: fractals and self-replicating structures. 23 In the Piano Etudes that he composed in the years following the Horn Trio, Ligeti unambiguously delves into the musical possibilities of fractals and the Shepard’s scale, especially in No. 9 Vertige, No. 13 L’escalier du diable, and No. 14 Columna infinită. It was in the middle of his discovery of these related phenomena that he composed the Horn Trio. Therefore, it is entirely plausible that because these ideas were current at the time the Horn Trio was written, they form a deep-level and almost imperceptible backdrop to the work, especially the Lamento movement. These concepts are not explicitly explored in this work, but there are some fascinating similarities in it. Because Ligeti’s treatment of the passacaglia figure shows similar characteristics to Escher’s transformational drawings and the Shepard scale, it could be considered as an intermediate step between his earliest interest in these concepts and his full exploration of these ideas in the Piano Etudes. Steinitz, Music and the Imagination, 206. Ibid, 302-303. The Shepard scale is an auditory illusion that seems to infinitely ascend or descend. 22 To see this illustration, visit: https://www.mcescher.com/gallery/recognition-success/waterfall/ 23 Troop, 192. 20 21 IV. CHARACTERISTICS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE LAMENT MOTIVE The passacaglia never strays from its role as the ostinato foundation of this movement. Being almost entirely confined to the piano, and rhythmically pedantic, it quickly recedes into the background, overshadowed by other, more active elements in the music. While the texture and range of the passacaglia are developed as shown above, its rhythm is never altered. Rhythmic variation is reserved for the other key component of this movement: the chromatically descending lament motive. It is here that another Schoenberg concept is very helpful in understanding how the lament motive is treated throughout the movement: developing variation. On the surface, the motive seems chaotic and inconsistent, especially because no two cycles of the lament motive are the same. And yet, each iteration is audibly identifiable as being part of the lament. This is because Ligeti’s developmental procedure is remarkably similar to the developing variation techniques found in the works of Brahms and Schoenberg. While Ligeti fervently rejected the notion that the composition of this work was influenced by Brahms in any way, it is difficult to overlook the fact that the manner in which he treats the lament motive has a lot in common with the methods used by Brahms and described by Schoenberg thus: Variation of the features of a basic unit produces all the thematic formulations which provide for fluency, contrasts, variety, logic and unity, on the one hand, 24 and character, mood, expression, and every needed differentiation, on the other hand–thus elaborating the idea of the piece.24 With this in mind, developing variation is probably the most accurate way of describing the process Ligeti uses to add variety to the lament motive. While each statement of the motive is quite different, Ligeti is able to maintain a sense of thematic unity because there are a few defining characteristics that do remain consistent throughout. These characteristics serve as the basic shape that maintain the theme’s identity while allowing changes to take place that elaborate the idea of the lament without changing its essential nature. These defining characteristics will be discussed after a general survey of the lament motive’s function in the great scheme of the movement. The lament first appears quite unobtrusively in the right hand of the piano at measure 5 (ex. 12a), and it continues to play iterations of this motive while the horn and violin take a more prominent role in its development. Between measures 6 and 14, the piano and violin trade roles, meaning that the passacaglia is transferred from the violin to the piano, as previously discussed, but also that the piano hands the lament off to the violin. Instruments and lines trading roles or places plays another significant role in the structure of the work as foreshadowed by the initial presentation of the passacaglia and its subsequent inversion. By measure 14, the lament is most clearly taken up by the violin (ex. 12b). 24 Schoenberg, Style and Idea, 397 25 Example 12a – First entrance of lament motive – piano Example 12b – Entrance of violin with chromatic lament motive The horn does not fully take part in the lament melody until measure 51. Instead, it sounds three extremely long tones, B4, Bb3, and C#5, that last from the beginning of the movement to measure 44. Ligeti’s approach to this motive’s development follows a similar trajectory to that of the passacaglia – simple beginning, exhaustive exploration of possibilities, and a return to simplicity at the end. However, 26 while he develops the passacaglia vertically by adding additional pitches until a cluster texture is formed, the development of the chromatic lament is much more rhythmic and horizontal. There is still some vertical thickening of the texture, but it is limited because the horn is restricted to its single line and the violin to double stops. Most vertical development of this line is done in the piano part. The horizontal and rhythmic development of the lament motive follows a similar path to that of the passacaglia, beginning simply but increasing greatly in complexity until all possibilities are exhausted near the center of the movement. At that point, there is a stark return to simplicity, creating a marked contrast with the climax of the work (ex. 13a). The lament, like the passacaglia, is developed through an additive process, but it is applied much differently from the way it is in the passacaglia. Like the passacaglia, the lament motive appears in cycles. However, whereas the passacaglia is rhythmically static and is only developed by adding to the vertical texture, the lament is developed by varying the horizontal length of the motive and changing the duration of the pitches; there is minimal vertical development (ex. 13b). When the lament is first presented by the piano in measure 6 and then by the violin in measures 14 and 15, it only contains three pitches. The next cycle, beginning in measure 16, adds a fourth pitch, and the next in measure 17, a fifth. However, from this point on, the development of the lament is inconsistent in each cycle except that there is a general lengthening of the motive until it reaches its greatest length of eighteen pitches in measures 55-56 (ex. 14). 27 Example 13a – Comparison of lament motive complexity 28 Example 13b – Comparison of passacaglia and lament development Developmental Differences Between the Passacaglia and Lament Development method Passacaglia None. One harmony per measure, on the Rhythmic Manipulation downbeat throughout the movement. Lament Varies. Rhythms begin simply but increase in complexity near the climax. They are again relaxed afterward. Beginning and end characterized by generally longer note durations. Durations near climax are very short. Primary form of development. Thickens into Limited. Double stops in violin. 4‐5 voices in clusters. Piano. Primary form of development. Varies greatly throughout. General lengthening closer to climax. Horizontal Lengthening None. Vertical Layering Instrumental Use Present in every instrument, oftentimes Restricted to piano except first 5 measures. simultaneously. Registral Use D41 to C8 A0 to B7 Example 14 – Lament motive developed to greatest length in m. 55-56 In measure 58, an important change occurs that shifts much of the rhythmic activity of the lament to the inner voices of the piano part. The horn and violin continue to play the lament, but they are placed in extremely high registers with augmented durations. From measure 58 to measure 77, the rhythmic activity of the lament is 29 concentrated in the piano part as it descends towards the A0 in measure 77. These measures are where the texture of the lament is the thickest, as Ligeti has layered up to four chromatically descending lines at a time. Because there are so many lines and they are often so close together, the texture begins to resemble the clusters of the passacaglia that are by this point being dissipated. Although the horn and violin are still playing the lament motive, they have augmented the rhythms to extreme lengths. From measure 71 to measure 78, the violin plays a single pitch while the piano continues the frenzied sixteenth, triplet, and thirty-second-note rhythms handed off from the violin in measures 55-56. In measure 72, Ligeti begins to fragment these rhythms and reduce the texture into smaller and smaller bursts of energy until only the A0 of measure 77 remains. It is at this point that the rhythmic energy of the movement is exhausted and the final, greatly augmented, cycles of the lament motive are all that is left to slowly and laboriously bring the Horn Trio to a close. With the overall function of the lament now in mind, it is important to define its basic shape, or that which gives the motive identifiable unity throughout. Because the lament is continually developed rhythmically and by horizontal extension, its nature can be obscured at times. However, there are a few defining characteristics that allow the listener to both aurally and visually peel back the layers of development to identify the basic underlying structure of the lament. The first characteristic is that the motive generally moves more quickly than the surrounding texture and when it does not, Ligeti makes sure it is orchestrated so that it is texturally prominent. The passacaglia is very slow and lengthy and as a result, 30 functions as an almost imperceptible background. Ligeti has also orchestrated the movement so that the lament appears primarily in the violin and horn parts with the piano echoing their movements in a kind of call and response. Each time it appears, it is heavily emphasized and stands out clearly against the background texture. When the motive is augmented to its greatest length beginning in measure 69, it is still clearly audible and recognizable. By this point, the piano has finished its descent to the bottom of its register, the passacaglia has been liquidated, and nothing is left but the horn at the extreme of its low range and the violin at the extreme of its high range. When the violin begins to descend for another cycle of the lament in measure 79, there is almost nothing for it to compete against, and it stands out clearly. The second relatively consistent characteristic of the lament motive is the nature of its chromaticism. The descending line used as the motive is not fully chromatic in that it almost always involves one or more whole steps. The exact number and where these whole steps are located within each cycle varies, but they are nearly always there. At the beginning of the movement, Ligeti tends to start each cycle with a whole step, but by measure 19, that pattern is broken and the location of the whole step is shifted (ex. 15a-b). Because the line is always descending and almost always contains mostly half steps, the audible differences in each cycle are negligible. By the time the line has been developed fully and is at its lengthiest in measures 55-56, it is completely chromatic with no whole steps remaining (ex. 16). Looking back at the initial statement of the passacaglia at the opening of the movement clarifies the origin of the descending 31 lament figure. The upper pitch of each harmonic dyad creates a line very similar to and foreshadowing the lament (ex. 17). Example 15a – Whole and half steps in the lament motive – reduction measures 6-19 Example 15b – Whole and half steps in the lament motive – reduction measures 19-29 Example 16 – Fully chromatic development of lament motive reduction – mms. 55-56 32 Example 17 – Foreshadowing of lament motive by upper voices of passacaglia Finally, another important and generally uniform characteristic of the lament is that smaller rhythmic units are placed near the beginning of each cycle and pitches or chords of longer duration occur near the end (ex. 18a-c). The lengths of both the rhythmically active and static sections of each cycle vary quite a bit throughout the movement. This pattern of motion and stasis facilitates a call-and-response texture between the three instruments – while one instrument moves, the others hold (ex. 19). As the climax approaches, the time between each call and its response is reduced until the instruments move more or less simultaneously. The lament motive is the sole moving part of the Lamento, and how quickly or slowly it moves is determined by its context in the form of the piece. Consistent with the other aspects previously discussed, the development of the lament contributes to the overall wedge shape of the movement’s form (see page 10). Starting slowly with longer rhythms, the movement progresses towards the climax at the center where the rhythms become faster and more agitated. Once the climax is reached in measure 73, the rhythms are relaxed and the lament is stretched out once again. 33 Example 18 – Motion and stasis in the lament motive a. Violin at measures 28-31 b. Piano at measures 40-43 34 c. Horn at measures 52-53 Example 19 – Call and response – measures 45-47 V. STRUCTURAL INTERACTIONS OF THE LAMENT MOTIVE AND PASSACAGLIA The information embedded in the five-measure Grundgestalt at the opening of the movement has even deeper implications for the structure of the work than have already been shown. Because the lament’s core identity also originates from these five measures (see example 17), the two components, lament and passacaglia, are able to work together seamlessly in some other fascinating ways. The foreshadowing of the movement’s wedge shape in the intervallic expansion and contraction of the opening five dyads has been discussed (refer to ex. 6). Expansion and contraction of a different nature, as well as juxtaposition of extremes, and saturation and exhaustion of ideas are other factors that have great influence on the movement’s structure and will be discussed hereafter. The way in which Ligeti uses each instrument, as well as the ways in which the two key components of the movement (lament and passacaglia) interact, offer insight into these other structural factors. Ligeti designs the movement so that the entire playable range of each instrument is exhausted but is careful to make sure that the extremes are placed where they may receive the greatest emphasis. For example, the climax of the work in measures 73-77 is one such location. Here the piano reaches both its highest and lowest extremes, sounding C8 and A0. The horn and violin are also spaced extremely widely 36 with the violin at B7 and the Horn at Bb1 (ex. 20). (Note how, if the intervals are reduced, the pitches A, Bb, B, and C form a chromatic collection on their own.) However, it is not necessarily registral extremes alone that make this moment so striking, it is also the contrast provided by the rhythmic and dynamic violence of the quadruple-forte piano part against the static and ethereal pitches held by the violin and horn at triple piano. Once the piano has played its last note, all that remains are the nearly silent and sustained notes of the violin and horn. Direct juxtaposition of extremes–low against high, violence against calm, chaotic rhythms against long durations–is nothing new to Ligeti’s style and instances of these stylistic elements are prominently featured in many of his works both predating and following the Horn Trio. For example, two very similar moments can be found in Atmosphères (1961) and Lontano (1967). Example 20 – Instrumental range in measures 73-77 37 In measures 39-40 of Atmosphères, Ligeti builds up a wave of extremely high sound that continues to ascend and grow louder until it reaches a cluster of quadruple forte pitches in the violins and piccolos at Eb7, G7, A7, and A#7. The sound is broken off suddenly and the eight double basses enter with a cluster containing every pitch from C#1 to G#1, requiring some of them to use scordatura tuning or have an extension to reach below E1 (ex. 21). Lontano has a moment that is even more like the climax of the Horn Trio with measures 41-42 of this work containing another prominent timbral and registral contrast. Example 21 – Extreme registral juxtaposition in Atmosphères – reduction measures 3940 Similar to what happens in Atmosphères, the full orchestra has been ascending to the highest registers possible on each instrument. The sound is abruptly cut off once again, leaving only the first violins sustaining a pianissimo C8 using an artificial harmonic in measure 41. In this same measure, while the first violins are sustaining their high pitch, the tubas enter on Db1, one of that instrument’s lowest possible notes. Ligeti even goes so far as to specify on the tuba part in the score, “on no account play an octave 38 higher” (ex. 22). While Ligeti was attempting to revise and refresh his style in the 1980s, his preoccupation with directly contrasting opposite extremes seems to have carried over from his earlier style to the Horn Trio and beyond.24 Example 22 – Extreme registral juxtaposition in Lontano – reduction of measures 4142 As mentioned above, a constant theme in the Lamento movement, and in many of Ligeti’s other works, is that of exhaustion, not just of register but conceptual exhaustion. It seems that when Ligeti has an idea, he wants to work out every possible way it can be used, developed, and transformed. In this movement, the lament motive fills this role quite well as it is so pervasive that it can be found in every single measure, and every register, rhythmic level, and contrapuntal layer. In many ways, it is a literal interpretation of the Grundgestalt idea as there seems to be “nothing but the theme Ligeti’s Piano Etudes from the 1980s and 1990s contain many instances of juxtaposition of extremes. Perhaps the most representative piece from the Etudes would be L’escalier du diable from the second volume. 25 39 itself” no matter where one looks in this movement.26 A good small-scale example of how Ligeti uses the lament in this manner can be found in the top staff of the piano part in measure 55. The passage begins with two voices and expands to four, all playing the same chromatic descending line (ex. 23a-b). As has been discussed previously, this vertical layering in every part becomes so thick at times that it results in clusters, thus exhausting the possibilities of vertical development. Example 23 – Layering of lament motive in measure 55 a. Original b. Reduction 26 Refer to footnote 13. 40 This discussion would be incomplete without addressing the role rhythm and time play in more depth. One of the most fascinating aspects of this movement is the way in which Ligeti uses the possibilities of time and duration to transform the music. Even though the piece is written in 5/8, it never clearly articulates this meter, which was Ligeti’s stated intent: Things should not necessarily be exact. I always like to evade them a little, still reserving the right to fall back on them. So, I consciously chose a 5/8 meter for the five intervals of the passacaglia model. But the partition into five cannot be heard; it is never distinctive, since it doesn’t act as a five-beat meter…the five bar groupings can be analyzed only visually, not by the ear… 27 Indeed, the only part that occurs at regular intervals of time is the passacaglia, always sounding on the downbeat of each measure. But given the complex surrounding texture and slow tempo of the movement, the ear does not discern this. Instead, the listener’s ear is quickly drawn to the lament motive and its subsequent development and the passacaglia recedes into the background. The Lamento movement seems to be divided into three distinct durational strata–each operating on its own timescale: moderate/regular, fast, and slow (ex. 24). The first, baseline layer, is the one in which the passacaglia resides. Its rhythms and durations never change, always one harmony per measure lasting the full measure. This layer is restricted to the piano part, with the exception of the first five measures. The lament motive is never present in this layer, except as a byproduct of its presence in the structure of the passacaglia, and even this is too obscured by the surrounding texture to be apparent anywhere but in the first five measures. The second is the layer where the melody is prominent. It is the fastest 27 Taylor, 31-32. Quoting from “Ligeti’s Horn Trio,” Melos 46/1 (1984) by Ulrich Dibelius, 57. 41 moving layer and all three instruments take part in it. Generally, anything that moves faster than the passacaglia’s regular harmonic rhythm is included in this layer. The third layer is much deeper in the fabric of the music and its rate of change is so slow that it is barely noticeable. It is also somewhat intermittent, appearing only at key points in the music. However, it plays a crucial role in the structure of the movement and contributes to some fascinating moments in the piece. One example of music at this level is the long pitches the horn plays from the beginning of the movement until measure 43; it sounds only three pitches during that entire time. The third level appears again in the piano when it plays its pedal tones in measures 57-77. Finally, the violin is active in this layer from measure 71 to measure 79 before the horn once again sounds its agonizingly slow descent in measures 76-101 (ex. 25). Example 24 – Durational strata 42 Example 25 – Third layer activity Ligeti cleverly uses the lament motive at each of the levels of duration so that its presence is ubiquitous throughout the movement. These three strata are quite liquid and interact with each other, regularly passing material between them. The one that interacts the least with the other two is actually the first level where the passacaglia resides. Once the passacaglia is dissolved in measure 73, this layer no longer exists and the other two are left to finish the piece. With careful listening, the layers can be discerned, but they are much more easily identified visually. As an example, in measures 58-61, all three layers can be identified (ex. 26). 43 Example 26 – Multiple, simultaneous rhythmic layers Layer one, or the passacaglia layer, can be seen in the first and third staves of the piano part as the dotted-quarter note clusters regularly occurring on the downbeat of each measure. The second, or fast layer is active in the violin and horn parts as well as the second (and sometimes third) staff of the piano part. Its rhythms are much faster, using mostly sixteenths and eighths. The final layer is found on the fourth staff of the piano where the octave C1 to C2 is used as the pedal. Even though the pitches of the pedal are sounded at regular intervals–every four beats (faster than the passacaglia)–it is still in the slowest rhythmic layer because the rate of harmonic change is so slow that it appears to be nonexistent. The most interesting interaction of all three layers occurs in the piano part from measure 27 though measure 77. The descending line in the bass register was discussed 44 previously in the context of being used to exhaust the register of the piano. On closer inspection, the bass pitches used are another iteration of the lament motive. In measures 27-30, the chromatic descent of the bass is being used as part of the passacaglia, but in measure 30, the duration is augmented so that it lasts four measures per harmony instead of just one. This augmentation shifts the timescale of this line from the moderate and regular level of the passacaglia to the extremely slow timescale of the third level. This handoff from one level to another is further corroborated by the C1 and B1 pedals from measures 57 to 77 that participate in and complete this extreme augmentation of the lament motive. After measure 73, only the fastest and slowest levels remain, and they begin to interact closely in the piano part. In measures 76-77, the final two pitches of this long-range lament, A0 and Bb0, are handed off to the fastest level in the right hand of the piano to complete the line. The cumulative result is a single iteration of the lament motive on all three rhythmic levels (ex. 27). This is, of course, happening in the background as many other repetitions of the lament are layered on top of each other in these measures. So, on one end of the spectrum, there are instances of the lament motive moving at a 32nd-note pace and completing the line in less than a single beat. On the other end are examples like the one above that move so slowly that it takes 50 measures, or nearly the entire length of the movement, to complete one cycle. Between these two extremes, Ligeti exhausts every conceivable rhythmic possibility for the lament motive. In many ways, the lament motive seems to be a self-replicating structure, or fractal, with each iteration giving birth to more, both larger and smaller-scale versions occurring simultaneously. 45 Example 27 – Long range lament motive Ligeti’s ability to create long-range structures out of small-scale gestures is apparent in other ways throughout the Lamento movement as well. Once again, the passacaglia at the opening of the movement acts as a Grundgestalt, foreshadowing a large-scale exchange that takes place between the violin and horn, and to a lesser degree a registral exchange between the lament and passacaglia in the piano part. I have already shown how the intervals of the passacaglia are inverted in each cycle and it is that inversion that prefigures these exchanges. The piano plays both the passacaglia and lament motive throughout the movement, and at the beginning, the lament first appears in the right hand of the piano in measure 6. In measure 7, the left hand begins to take the passacaglia from the violin. At this point, both the lament and passacaglia are in the middle range of the piano from Gb3 to F5, but the former is registrally higher than the latter. Until measure 33, the passacaglia sinks lower while the lament motive stays in about the same register. In measure 28, there is a split in the passacaglia with the left hand of the piano taking part of it downward from F1 to Db1 and the right hand 46 beginning to move upward towards D#6, bringing it higher than the lament. By measure 34, the passacaglia has completely moved upward to the same range as the lament between Eb4 and Eb7. Both parts are very close to one another, but the passacaglia begins to inch higher, and by measure 57, the lament motive begins its steady descent to A0 at the climax while the passacaglia climbs to C8, completing this exchange. In summary, the passacaglia begins in the violin’s lowest register while the lament begins in a relatively high register of the piano and over the course of 77 measures, the instruments switch roles and the passacaglia and lament switch registers. The violin exchanges the passacaglia for the lament and ascends up to its highest register, while the piano exchanges the lament for the passacaglia and descends to its lowest register. The most prolonged exchange occurs between the horn and violin and takes place over nearly the entire duration of the movement. This is a registral exchange more than anything and, consistent with other elements of this movement, exhausts the range of each instrument. The violin’s role at the very beginning of the movement is to set the background passacaglia in motion, and it is significant that it is in the lowest possible register of the instrument. G3 is sounded only a handful of times in the movement, all in about the first third of the work. After measure 41, it is never heard again and the violin part ascends to the highest pitch of the movement, and one of the highest playable pitches on the violin, which is the long sustained B7 starting in measure 71. Once the violin plays this pitch, it descends somewhat, ending on C5. Over the course of the movement, the violin covers four octaves and a third, beginning with its lowest register and ending with its highest. The horn does the opposite. It begins with a 47 long, sustained B4–not quite an extreme for this instrument, but it is above the violin and it is significant. In the first 44 measures, only two other pitches are sounded by the horn: Bb2 and C#5. The horn first starts to take an active role with a loud entrance in measure 51, and until about measure 68, it remains in the extreme highest register of the instrument. Its highest pitch is the E5 in measure 55 and from here, it starts to trend downward. The true extreme for the horn comes near the end though. Here Ligeti requires the instrument to descend well below its normal playing range to G1. Similar to the violin, over the course of the work, the horn covers its entire range and then some from G1 to E5 (ex. 28). So, the voice exchange occurring between the two instruments has the violin starting in its lowest possible range and moving to its highest, while the horn is generally in its highest range toward the beginning and moves to its lowest extreme. Example 28 – Range of violin and horn The most significant aspect of this exchange are the pitches used at the extremes for both instruments. In the very first measure, the harmony spelled out by the violin’s 48 double stop and the horn’s sustained pitch is an E minor triad. The violin has E4 and G4 while the horn has the fifth of the chord on B4. Recall that the highest pitch sounded by the horn is E5 and the lowest is G1. These are the same pitches sounded by the violin at the beginning, only inverted. Similarly, the lowest pitch sounded (and possible) by the violin in the beginning measures is G3, which is reminiscent of the horn’s lowest pitch, G1, at the end. Additionally, the horn’s B4 at the very beginning prefigures the violin’s sustained B7 at the climax. It is also notable that the repeated pedal tone sounded by the piano in the climactic measures is also a B, but seven octaves lower. So, it would appear that although the Lamento movement is by no means in E minor, the pitches that make up this triad serve the important role of setting the boundaries within which the violin and horn operate (ex. 29). Example 29 – Voice exchange of violin and horn – reduction VI. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS Even though Ligeti’s style was changing in the early 1980s to include more melodic elements and even recognizable triads and seventh chords, he was able to blend his older techniques with these newer elements. The Lamento movement is a wonderful example of how he was able to do this. Ligeti’s earlier works, especially those of the late 1950s and early 1960s, eschewed anything remotely resembling melody. But during the 1970s, the shift towards melodicism was already under way.28 So the simple fact that the lament motive is such a clearly audible and easily recognizable melody is quite significant. This is one of the first examples of this level of melodic clarity in Ligeti’s music. Equally significant, though, is how Ligeti is able to maintain its identity and yet weave it into every aspect of the texture and structure of the movement. The lament motive, being a highly chromatic descending line, is so ubiquitous at every level that the movement ends up being completely saturated with it. As with other elements in this movement, Ligeti exhausts the pitch realm as well by literally using every single pitch between A0 and C8. This by itself is not all that uncommon as there are many pieces of music that do this. However, Ligeti is able to go beyond even this by using the idiosyncrasies of the natural horn. This doubtless has roots in Brahms’s use of the instrument for his trio, to which Ligeti’s is an homage. But perhaps the most important 28 Searby, 17. 50 reason why Ligeti selected the natural horn is that it is capable of playing natural harmonics that are not quite in line with equal-temperament.29 The resulting chromatic saturation of the movement is taken beyond the semitone level and into the microtonal realm. It is as if simply exhausting all the chromatic possibilities were not enough; he needed to take it one step further. During the horn’s most active measures in the Lamento, its natural harmonics are used to great effect. They most often occur on the long, sustained notes at the tail end of each lament-motive statement as if to allow the listener to relish their “off” sound. The resulting clash between the natural harmonics of the horn, and the equal-temperament of the piano to which the violin conforms, is both astoundingly harsh and refreshingly brilliant. 30 By including these conflicting tunings, Ligeti is arguably able to evoke a more profoundly human sense of mourning and anguish that would otherwise be impossible. The quarter-tone pitches convey a sense of uncontrollable grief that mimics the sound of professional mourners he heard as a youth in Romania.31 This experience had a profound effect on him, and the themes of mourning and lament were ones that would shape much of his later music from the 1980s onward.32 This sense of grief and loss may share a connection to Brahms’s Horn Trio as well. Even though Ligeti refused to acknowledge any influence from this piece, it is, again, hard to overlook the fact that Brahms’s Horn Trio was written in response to the death of his mother. While her memory is present in every movement in one way or Steinitz, Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds, 182. It should be noted that although the violin is capable of reaching beyond equal temperament since its pitches are not fixed as are the piano’s, Ligeti never requires the violin to do so except for one instance in measure 93. 31 Steinitz, Music of the Imagination, 9. 32 Bauer, 3. 29 30 51 another, it is the melancholy Mesto movement in which Brahms’s anguish is most apparent.33 There is no direct historical evidence to suggest that Ligeti’s choice to end his trio with a somber lament is tied to Brahms, but the similarity between the two pieces cannot be overlooked. The natural horn gave Ligeti the opportunity to explore another area of recent interest to him at the time: non-Western tunings and musical systems. Just like his idol, Bartók, Ligeti had been interested in folk music from a very young age and studied it intensely during his youth. 34 Later in his life, this interest would resurface, but instead of centering his study on Hungarian and Romanian folk music, his interest turned to the more “exotic” flavors of Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. The late 1970s and early 1980s were a time of great discovery for Ligeti in this area and the complex rhythms and different tunings of non-Western cultures intrigued and inspired him. 35 The Horn Trio seems to be one of his first forays into the possibilities of using two different tuning systems simultaneously. There are several works written after the Horn Trio where Ligeti explores these sounds even further. The seventh etude, Galamb borong from his second book of etudes, is a unique example in which Ligeti finds a way to use intervallic combinations to make the fixed tuning of the piano mimic that of the Indonesian gamelan. He would further explore contrasting tunings in his Violin Concerto completed in 1993. 36 Joshua Garrett, “Brahms Horn Trio: Background and Analysis for Performers” (DMA diss., The Juilliard School, 1998), 7-10. 34 Steinitz, Music of the Imagination, 29-30. 35 Steinitz, Music of the Imagination, 271-272. 36 Ibid, 331-333 33 52 The nonstandard tuning of the horn certainly heightens the emotional impact of the movement, but the general contour, buildup, and release of energy in the piece also contribute greatly to its emotive power. As mentioned above, from the beginning of the movement until the climax at measure 77, there is a constant buildup of energy, rhythmically, texturally, and dynamically. Layers are added to layers until the music is completely saturated with instances of the lament motive. After the climax, though, the energy of the movement is exhausted, the passacaglia is washed away, and only the lament remains in an extremely augmented form and spaced registrally very far apart in the horn and violin. The horn has only one very slow cycle of the lament in measures 76 to 101 and it is at the lowest possible register of the instrument, beginning on Bb1 and descending to G1. The violin is near the top of its register at this point and makes an agonizingly slow descent from B7 down to C6. The piano’s only role is to play small hints and fragments of the lament in the background as the horn and violin wind their way down. With all the energy of the movement released, the music that remains is barely a skeleton of what it once was. Texturally, the music is very thin, ranging from two to five voices, with the exception of the cluster in measure 100. Dynamically, the music never rises above piano and nearly all rhythmic activity has ceased. The resulting emotional impact of the closing measures is literally one of exhaustion and grief. This brings up an interesting question: given the thinning of the texture towards the end and the overall chromatic saturation of the movement, how does the 53 concluding A-Lydian cluster fit in to the overall scheme of the work? 37 It would seem to make more sense for Ligeti simply to end with one final statement of the lament motive, but the bright Lydian pitch collection seems entirely foreign to the dark and chromatic nature of the piece. Perhaps this is the key to understanding it. Throughout the work, the lament motive is characterized by descending, mostly half-step motion with a few whole steps intermixed. This Lydian cluster at the very end is the exact opposite: it is dominated by whole steps with only a single half step (ex. 30). It is as if the music, having been saturated with half steps, is now coming full circle to the opposite end of the spectrum and it translates into a surprisingly satisfying emotional and musical ending to the Lamento. After all the darkness and descent of the movement, a brilliant flash of light is saved for the very end: a single chord in opposition to everything that has gone before. It is not without precedent though. A closer examination of the clusters used in the passacaglia part reveals that, especially as they grow thicker, whole steps become more common in each one. The thickest cluster in measure 68 is completely diatonic, using a C major pitch collection (ex. 31). So, Ligeti’s use of a largely whole-step collection at the end of the movement fits in with what has already occurred. What makes it stand out above the rest is the context in which it is placed. Within the movement when a cluster favoring whole steps is used, it is usually surrounded by a half-step rich environment and is thus overshadowed. Additionally, the combination of various collections, even ones that have mostly whole steps, ends up The cluster itself contains only five pitches A, B C#, D#, and E so it is inconclusive as to whether it is a true Lydian collection. However, the piano does sound F# and G# in measure 94 as part of its final distorted echo of the opening dyads. If those two pitches are included, the complete A-Lydian collection can be found in this area. 37 54 being highly chromatic, thus de-emphasizing each cluster’s individual collection. The ALydian cluster occurring at the end is placed in a highly exposed location and thus draws the listener’s attention. There is barely any surrounding texture since the horn and violin are playing almost imperceptibly at this point. And so, even though this collection seems entirely foreign to the Lamento movement, it is simply the final echo of the passacaglia clusters that have been present all along. Example 30 – Final Lydian cluster 55 Example 31 – Diatonic clusters at measure 68 VII. CONCLUSION The Lamento from Ligeti’s Horn Trio is an excellent example of a transitional piece, blending his older style with new influences and techniques. It even foreshadows developments in his later music. Structurally and formally, the movement is more closely related to his past work because it draws upon the techniques he used to create his textural works. But aesthetically and harmonically, it is forward-looking, containing recognizable harmonies and melody, evidence of new influences like the illusions of Shepard Scales, fractals, and Escher drawings, as well as nonstandard tunings. The shadows of these elements present in the Horn Trio were brought to full fruition in many of Ligeti’s later works like the three books of Piano Etudes (1985-95), the Piano Concerto (1988), and the Violin Concerto (1993). Rather than falling firmly within one school of thought or another, Ligeti consciously sought to forge his own independent path to produce music that is both intellectually intriguing and aesthetically satisfying to the ear. 38 While Ligeti fought to be completely original, there are many aspects of the Lamento that do show a strong connection to past ideas and techniques, including developing variation and Grundgestalt. Even though many fascinating organizational processes are at work in the 38 Bernard, 233. 57 background of his music, he makes sure that the structure does not take priority over the resulting sound as this was his main objection to the serial school of thought. He felt that the sound of purely serial music oftentimes suffered because it was relegated to a secondary position, while pre-compositional processes were elevated. 39 And so, this is where Ligeti’s approach to composition departs from that of many of his avant-garde counterparts, and especially from the Second Viennese School. Instead of tightly controlling, or even pre-determining, every single aspect of the music, his method is to use select controlled elements as a backdrop upon which unlimited colors and layers can be added. The end result is music that is grounded on a clearly identifiable foundation but that moves and grows in very organic and sometimes unexpected ways. Ligeti’s musical foundations for the Lamento are the basic ideas of passacaglia and lament, not necessarily their conventional applications. Stripping away everything but the very core identity of these two elements preserves Ligeti’s creative freedom to challenge what these ideas mean, and to rebuild them from the ground up in his own image. This is what makes Grundgestalt and developing variation so effective for describing Ligeti’s compositional process in this work. Both of these concepts revolve around basic templates of events that foreshadow later musical elaborations. It is the unorthodox way in which Ligeti elaborates upon his chosen foundations that forces us to think about what constitutes musical organization a little differently. In Ligeti’s hands, a Grundgestalt works exceptionally well as a general outline of how a single very small and simple idea can be expanded exponentially to create a complex whole, and how 39 Bernard, 208-209. 58 that idea can permeate every level of a composition from beginning to end. In the Lamento movement, Ligeti challenges both convention and the avant-garde in his own unique way, and his creativity manages to produce a piece of music that is intellectually stimulating and at the same time both musically and emotionally satisfying. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bauer, Amy. Ligeti’s Laments: Nostalgia, Exoticism, and the Absolute. Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2011 Bernard, Jonathan W., “Inaudible Structures, Audible Music: Ligeti’s Problem, and His Solution.” Musical Analysis Vol. 6, No. 3 (Oct., 1987): 207-236. Cuciurean, John Daniel. “A Theory of Pitch, Rhythm, and Intertextual Allusion for the Late Music of Györgi Ligeti.” PhD diss., State University of New York at Buffalo, 2000. Floros, Constantin. György Ligeti: Beyond Avant-garde and Postmodernism. Translated by Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch. PL Academic Research, 2014. Frisch, Walter. Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984. 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