Artikulation (Ligeti)
Artikulation is an
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 outbreaks and humor, charring and whispering.[1][3][4]
The three minute and 45 second long[5] piece, in quadraphonic sound, was premiered March 25, 1958 at WDR Cologne's 'Musik der Zeit' concert series and September 4, 1958 at Darmstadt.[6] It was heard again March 1993 at the New England Conservatory,[7] while for recordings it has been mixed down to stereophonic sound.
Background
Ligeti had just fled from Budapest to Cologne in 1956,
Composition
Ligeti used both
First I chose types [of noise, or artificial phonemes] with various group-characteristics and various types of internal organization, as: grainy, friable, fibrous, slimy, sticky and compact materials. An investigation of the relative permeability of these characters indicated which could be mixed and which resisted mixture.[12]
Having conceived of many various possible and artificial phonemes, created recordings of them, and grouped them into various categories and bins, Ligeti created a formula (and many tables) to determine the maximum length of each tape used (the louder the shorter), and then went through a process of grabbing randomly, without-looking, similar "phonemes" out of their bins, combining them into "texts", and then cutting these in half, down to "words".[6][12][13]
Despite this process, the piece has been described as, "spontaneous, even witty",[6] "humorous",[14] and as "influential".[15] Holmes argues that though Ligeti abandoned electronic music after Glissandi and Artikulation, "it seems clear he could not have conceived some of his later works [such as Atmosphères] had he not learned the techniques of composing with slowly modulating textures and timbres that came with producing tape music."[12]
Listening score
Wehinger...focuses on the main sonic characteristics: uses a timeline measured in seconds; shapes and colors instead of the notes on a staff; different colors that represent variations in
noise.[4]
The depiction of frequency using the y-axis may be, "very approximate".[19] The score was later synced to the music and posted on YouTube.[3] Though Holmes finds, "the artistic value in visualizing this work...plain to see",[12] Taruskin argues the score is "decorative or celebratory...rather than...practical".[11]
Tom Service of The Guardian argues that even prior to Wehinger's score and its animation, "Ligeti himself imagined the sounds of Artikulation conjuring up images and ideas of labyrinths, texts, dialogues, insects, catastrophes, transformations, disappearances."[8]
Legacy
In 2003, Matmos included the composition in a list of the best musique concrète work; they compared its length to that of pop singles and felt that the piece "makes the most out of the dramatic jumpcuts and juxtapositions which tape editing makes possible", comparing "the sudden upswoops, dropouts and hard-panned bursts of sound" to the work of Lee Perry and Wassily Kandinsky. They added: "Ligeti's compositional nous means that even when he's chopping up purely electronic source material (sine waves and snerts and blips and blops), he comes up with something strong and at times almost melodic, like an extended run of backwards reverbed birdsong."[20]
See also
- Additive synthesis
- ADSR envelope
- Reverberation
- Spectral music
References
- ^ a b c György Ligeti, Rainer Wehinger (1970). Artikulation: An Aural Score by Rainer Wehinger, pp. 7–8. Mainz: Schott.
- ISBN 9780879306380.
- ^ a b kris (Aug. 22, 2009). "Artikulation with a visual score Archived 2017-06-19 at the Wayback Machine", Phidelity.com.
- ^ a b "Artikulation [1958]", FldvariBooks.com.
- ^ AllMusic
- ^ ISBN 9780571261116. "syllables", "words", "sentences", "language".
- ^ Alex Ross (March 20, 1993). "Ligeti 1993: Searching for Music's Outer Limits", The New York Times (at TheRestisNoise.com).
- ^ a b Tom Service (2009). "Ligeti - the multimedia experience ...", The Guardian. "He escaped the Soviet invasion of Budapest in 1956."
- ISBN 9781843835509.
- ^ Jennifer Joy Iverson, " Historical Memory and György Ligeti's Sound-Mass Music 1958–1968", PhD diss (Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Butler School of Music, 2009): 92.
- ^ ISBN 9780199796007.
- ^ ISBN 9781136468957.
- ISBN 9781135037307. "Sounds to texts to words to languages to Articulation."
- ^ Antokoletz (2014), p. 420.
- ^ "György Ligeti Archived 2021-03-08 at the Wayback Machine", PolarMusicPrize.org.
- ^ Fred Lerdahl (1988/1992). "Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems", p. 235. Contemporary Music Review 6, no. 2:97–121.
- ISBN 9780714837956. Artikulation is, "an essentially lively cheerful work".
- ^ Yotam Mann. "Artikulate: Ligeti Style for Any Audio", Vis.Berkeley.edu.
- ISBN 9783643903020.
- ^ Daniel, Drew; Matmos (1 May 2003). "Matmos: Musique Concrète Smash Hits". Pitchfork. Retrieved 4 October 2022.