New compositional techniques by D. Ligeti: the first book of Etudes

The article deals with new compositional techniques in the post-tonal period of Gyorgy Ligeti. On the example of Etudes No. 1, No. 2 and No. 6 from the first book of Etudes for piano (1985) by Ligeti, the following problems are highlighted: harmony and disharmony of personality in the modern world, “chaos” as an aesthetic category, traditions of P. Boulez, A. Webern, J. Cage, romantic composers; interpretation of sectional forms, the method of rhythmic layers, complex polyrhythmy and its function, melodic proliferation (growth, which has analogies in the technique of playing unequal motives of Stravinsky, in the rhythmic technique of “dissolution” and “contraction” of Messiaen), type of writing (“polyphony of heterophony”), the model of “ordered disorder”, comparison of the superposition of structures in Ligeti and tetrachords in folk music (No. 20 from the collection of Rimsky-Korsakov; play dance “Korshun”). The analysis of Etude No. 6, the last of the first book, adds new aspects - the influence of African rhythms in the interpretation of hemiols, the phenomena of “illusory rhythm” and complex polymetry, which is comparable to the three-dimensional “impossible” perspective in the paintings of Maurits Escher. Consideration of three etudes from the first book in the aspect of the relationship between the musical text and the context is decided at the intersection of phenomenology (orientation of consciousness to local structures), hermeneutics (the art of interpretation in the ratio of content aspects and compositional techniques) and elements of “methodological structuralism” (in the use of paired categories of interpretive discourse: material and form, chaos / “ordered chaos”, innovation and resistance to innovation, etc.). Etudes by Gyorgy Ligeti influenced the composers of the late 20th century significantly. The influence of post-serial modernism is manifested in the work with the parameters of pitch, rhythm and density. Boulez's principle of proliferation (sudden growth of texture) gives impetuosity and dynamism to all sketches, regardless of their tempo. At the same time, in Etudes Ligeti, there is an expanding influence of minimalism, even more firm than before, resistance to innovation: following Cage, Ligeti re-opens simple melodies, using, however, tonal “chaos” on a small scale and dynamic sectional forms. Ligeti's method of rhythmic layers explains an essential aspect of his compositional approach: the use of impulse flows to create “auditory illusions” and convey the main theme of the work.

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