The next composer we will cover is György Ligeti, a Hungarian composer who spent most of his professional life in Germany. We will actually take two passes at Ligeti, looking first at two mid-period works from the 1960s, before later looking at some late-period works from the 1980s – early 2000.

Start with Lux Aeterna (1966), a piece for 16 solo singers. Listen to the recording first without looking at the score to get a feel for the music. It is quite different from standard homophonic or contrapuntal textures you might be familiar with. After a listening or two, break out the score and follow along (as best you can – entrances and rhythmic gestures are difficult to hear). I’ll begin talking about this work on Friday, after finishing up Webern.

The other work is the String Quartet No. 2 (1968). I’ve included all the movements, but I’m going to focus on the third and fourth movements. (The second movement is a bit like Lux Aeterna, and I’ll touch on it.) We won’t get to this before Wednesday (Monday is Memorial day, a holiday).

I find both works to be extremely beautiful, but in starkly different ways. Lux is absolutely non-aggresive and cloud-like in presentation. The quartet batters you with force and contrast.

There are two folders in the musth617 folder in my iLocker account, Ligeti-Lux and Ligeti-StQt2.

Review Materials

Short summaries of interval class, pitch set analysis, and 12-tone serialism are on this site from my teaching of MUSTH 212.

• Intervals in atonal theory
• Pitch-class set analysis (and here)
• 12-tone serialism

Audio Files

I’ve put mp3 files for the Webern listening (for Wednesday) in my iLocker account. Any files I put online for this class will be found in:

http://ilocker.bsu.edu/users/kkothman/BSU_SHARED/musth617/

Wednesday’s Assignment

For the Webern String Quartet, op. 5, IV, try to find and label pitch sets by their set class names.

For Wie bin ich froh (op. 25), create a row matrix using the opening 12 notes of the vocal part as your prime form of the row. Except for the third system, the voice and piano have their own row forms. In the third system, the piano takes over the voice row and completes it. The voice returns with the beginning of new row form. This work utilizes a limited set of row forms and transpositions. If you have time, analyze some of the recurring set classes that appear. I’ll talk about this aspect along with the row usage in class on Wednesday.

All you need to do with the Op. 21 Symphonie is listen to it with the score. I’m going to give a presentation on this piece on Wednesday.

Online Set Theory Calculators

There are a number of web-based set calculators available. Don’t use these as your first stop in analyzing sets. You need to have some facility to do this yourself. Use these tools to check your answers, especially in regards to normal order and prime forms. The calculator that I’ve used the most is Jay’s Set Theory Calculator, a java-based web application.