• Author / Uploaded
• Marcelo González

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LIGETI’S ARTIKULATION Artikulation is an electronic composition. Ligeti composed it in January-February 1958 and its realization in sound took place in February -March1958, in co-operation with Gottfried Michael Koenig and(in part) Cornelius Cardew;:at the Studio of Electronic Music of the West German Radio (WDR) in Cologne. The original version is for four tracks, but a two-track version also exists. “Artikulation” is 3 minutes 47 seconds long. The first performance took place on 25 March 1958 in Cologne, in the “Musik der Zeit” concert series of the WDR. When working with electronic sounds at the studio in Cologne,Ligeti did not feel inclined to organize the material through and through in all imaginable (and above all governable) parameters,as is usually the case at first. Instead, he heard in various forms of sounds a similarity to language and decided to compose an imaginary conversation, a sequence of monologues, dialogues and multi-voiced disputes, in which characteristic intonations stand for literal meanings.The piece is called ‘Artikulation’ because in this sense an artificial language is articulated: question and answer, high and low voices, polyglot speaking and interruptions, impulsive outbreaksand humor, chattering and whispering. Ligeti himself says about this quasi programmatic idea: “Certainly I have an aversion to everything that is demonstratively programmatic and illustrative. But that does not mean that I am against music that calls forth associations; on the contrary,sounds and musical coherence always arouse in me ideas of consistency and colour, of visible and recognizable form. And vice versa: I constantly combine colour, form, texture and abstract concepts with musical ideas. This explains the presence of so many non-musical elements in my compositions. Sound-fields and masses that flow together, alternate with, or penetrate, one another; suspended nets that tear or become knotted; damp, viscous, spongy, fibrous, dry, brittle, granulous and compact materials; threads, short flourishes, splinters and traces of all kinds; imaginary edifices, labyrinths, inscriptions, texts, dialogues, insects, conditions, occurences, coalescence, transformation, catastrophe, decay, disappearance; all are elements of this non puristic music.” (1960) In another publication Ligeti comments on the musical idea of “Artikulation”, the linking and combination of sounds “in conditions of aggregation”: “First I chose types with various group-characteristics and various types of internal organization. An investigation of the relative permeability of these characters indicated which could be mixed and which resisted mixture. The serial ordering of such behaviour-characteristics served as a basis for the erection of the form. In the detailwork I attempted to obtain contrast between the types of material and between the modes of amalgamation,whereas the over-all plan was a gradual, irreversible progress from the heterogeneous disposition at the beginning to the complete mixture and interpenetration of the contrasted characters at the end.

Composition

The materials were handled in such a way as to produce a speech-like result. By combining the various elements, quasi “sounds”, “syllables”, “words”, “sentences”, “texts” and “languages”were created. These terms are purely analogies of sound, not of grammar The composer split up bits of tape into a system of boxes. Each box contained a number of bits of tape with sound characteristics in common. The system of boxes was devised from predetermined (serial) plans and permitted the selection of individual bits of tape to be left to chance.This procedure, then, can be considered a combination of serial and quasi aleatoric methods of composition. The system of boxes comprised the following categories: a) combination of materials (see below) b) pitch distribution c) duration relationships d) intensity relationships Both pitch and duration followed in detail a certain predetermined scale. Seen globally, however, the pitches were classified in high, middle and low ranges and combinations of the three, to which the system of boxes referred. The lenght of the bits of tape was determined by a “tempered time-scale”. The values of the series were obtained by repeated multiplication by the factor 11/10, rounded off to millimetres of tape. The frequency with which the bits of tape were used (the “statistical distribution”) had to decrease as the length of tape increased. Thus there were, for one material, 150 bits of tape 1 cm in length, and one bit of tape 150 cm in length (76 cm equalling 1 second, since the studio apparatus was operated at the tape speed of 76 cm/sec., that was then still in use). This relationship of tape length to number guaranteed an uniform distribution of the material in question.The bits of tape were stuck together and used up according to the plans mentioned above. The result was ten lengths of tape lasting from 11 to 43 seconds, the homogeneous and heterogeneous “texts”. These “texts” were then scanned to find individual “words” (not literal words, of course), and on this basis they were cut up into smaller bits - words. Ligeti treated the bits of tape with “words” precisely as he hadtreated the bits of tape with “sounds”: he arranged them in a system of boxes and stuck them together, according to previously-made plans, to form kilometre-long tapes, whose soundcontents were called “languages”.The long “languages” were cut up in turn into “sentences”. All the pieces of tape were again arranged according to group characteristics and assigned to a system of boxes whose categories met the requirements of the formal concept of the work. The pieces of tape were accordingly distributed among four tracks and stuck together to make “Artikulation.” (Mostly from Rainer’s score)

Artikulation

languages

texts

sentences

words sounds

FIG. 1