Sound Colors, Micropolyphony and Rhythmic Chaos in Ligeti’s Music of the 1960s

In the history of music, composers have always been seeking new ways to express themselves, and find
their own musical language. This struggle has sometimes caused innovations, which were the beginning of
new styles in music. Gyorgy Ligeti, as one of the most influential composers of the second half of the 20th
century, has a diverse oeuvre as a result of his innovations. His compositions of the 1960s and 1970s have
some common characteristics that make them unique. This essay is mostly based on these compositions.
Three selected techniques, which are the main topic of this essay, include Klangfarben (sound colors)
composition, micropolyphony, and rhythmic chaos. Klangfarben means sound color or timbre, which
became popular by the expressionist composers such as Schoenberg. Ligeti was also influenced by this
technique and developed this approach through applying different timbres of notes to create his music.
For instance, the beginning of his cello concerto (1966) features techniques such as sul ponticello, sul
tasto, playing the same note on different strings, playing the same note as a harmonic note, tremolo, non
vibrato and non expressive on a single note (E4). The use of a single pitch is an appropriate choice for
this purpose as the listener can concentrate on the various colors of the note rather than being distracted
by a variety of notes of a beautiful melody. The second technique, which is discussed in the essay, is the
micropolyphonic texture which was invented by Ligeti. This texture is a sound mass created by a variety of
layers which might look static on surface but are, in fact, dynamic inside. These canon-like layers cannot
be distinguished from each other and are meant to be heard as a whole. In this section, two types of clusters
will be studied. The first one is static clusters which result from the combination of long-duration layers
that might have slight movements. Also, one can find combinations in which each layer consists of short
repetitive notes instead of long-held notes. In this type of clusters, each layer plays the short notes on the
rest of the other layer, and therefore, the combination sounds complete. Each two successive notes of this
type of clusters are heard by two different colors, which results in a relatively light texture. The second
type is named dynamic clusters in which layers introduce various notes with fast tempos and moving
figures. The third technique, which will be discussed is rhythmic chaos, was first introduced by Ligeti in
his Poeme Symphonique (1962). This includes different rhythmic patterns on a limited number of notes to
create rhythmic irregularity and chaos. Again, since the concentration of music is on the rhythmic factor,
the composer limits the passage to a single or few notes to convey his ideas in a better way.