Dissertation Index



Author: Bauer, Amy, M

Title: Compositional Process and Parody in the Music of Gyorgy Ligeti

Institution: Yale University

Begun: January 1990

Completed: August 1996

Abstract:

"Compositional Process and Parody in the Music of Gyorgy Ligeti" examines parody and compositional process in Ligeti's works from the early 1950s through the mid-1980. I discuss parody in Ligeti's music as a doubly-coded, paradoxical synthesis of musical texts that establishes a critical distance from an original text or set of conventions. Various models of critical distance-canonic structure, mannerist style, modal functions, allusions to late nineteenth-century orchestral music, and an inverted relation between primary and secondary musical parameters-are presented as specific examples of ironic 'trans-contextualization' and inversion. I illustrate these critical models with analyses of music taken from different phases of Ligeti's career, and discuss the aesthetics of Ligeti's music in the context of contemporary post-serial and avant-garde European music. Works examined include solo compositions (Ricercare per organo, Harmonies, Continuum and the recent Piano Etudes), electronic pieces (Glissandi and Artikulation), chamber music (Aventures, the First and Second String Quartets, Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet, and the Chamber Concerto), choral works (Éjszaka, Reggel, Requiem, Lux Aeterna, and Magyar Etüdök), and compositions for orchestra (Apparitions, Atmosphéres, Lontano, Melodien, and the Violin Concerto).

Keywords: canon, Ligeti, Lontano, mannerism, micropolyphony, musical allusion, pattern-meccanico, parody, secondary parameter

TOC:

Chapter I Historical Distance and the Critique of Tradition: Introduction to the Music of Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-)
Chapter II Micropolyphony, Pattern-Meccanico and the Mannerist Tradition Chapter
III Modal Functions, Canonic Procedure and the Unity of Musical Space in Ligeti's polyphony
IV. "Tone-color, movement, changing harmonic planes;" Secondary Parameters and Structural Inversion in the Music of Ligeti V "Through Bruckner's Eyes": Allusion and Influence in Ligeti's Orchestral Works VI "Behind the Music there is Other Music"; Poeitic, Immanent and Esthesic Distance in Ligeti's Ouevre

Contact:

1007 1/2 W 38th
Kansas City, MO 64111
Voice: (816) 235-2857
Fax: (816) 235-5264
Amy Bauer
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory
Conservatory of Music
4949 Cherry
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Kansas City, MO 64110-2229
bauera@cctr.umkc.edu


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