The Genesis of the Technique of Canonic Sound Mass in Ligeti's "Lontano"

Author(s): Robert L. Rollin

Source: Indiana Theory Review , WINTER, 1979, Vol. 2, No. 2 (WINTER, 1979), pp. 23-33
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the Department of Music Theory,
Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/24044757

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The Genesis of the Technique of

Canonic Sound Mass in Ligetis Lontano

Robert L. Rollin

Sound mass or cluster composition has received re

markably little attention by theorists. David Cope
devotes a short chapter to it identifying Henry Cowell's
The Tides of Manaunaun (piano, 1911) and Charles Ives'
Majority (piano and voice, arranged 1921) as works having
the first use of "traditional noise as an acceptable
musical element." 1 John Yinton on the other hand, whi
not actually using the term "sound mass" identifies this
trend as not merely a preoccupation with noise, but rather
an interest on the part of composers in creating textures
which deliberately straddle the boundary between pitch and
noise, between identifiable discrete details and a unified
textural totality.

"Composers began to show an interest in sound (as

opposed to a particular classification of sounds) as
soon as they began taking liberties with the metrical
tonal system. This is not revealed in the use of new
sound-sources but in the way composers used the sources
at hand, and in particular by the increased attention
they gave to timbre, to novel solo and ensemble effects,
to density, chord spacing, register and other details
of texture, and to subtleties of dynamics and articu
lation." 2

Ligeti's approach to sound mass in a number of his

works, notably Lux Aeterna and Lontano. differs markedly
from that of Cowell's in his early piano works. Cowell's
approach was that the material of clusters is governed by
a fixed interval between their outer limits, and often
constitutes a form of harmonic support or doubling of
linear material. 3 Hence, it is analogous to the use of
parallelisms in earlier music. For Ligeti and a number
of other composers the clusters themselves become evolving
textural formations by means of an ever-changing polyphonic
web. In this type of compositional procedure the indi
vidual musical lines are less important then the overall
effect of a gradually changing texture. The use of can
onic treatment is but one facet of Ligeti's diverse
approaches to sound mass composition, but is especially
worthy of attention because it represents the most clearly
discernable connection between traditional compositional
procedures and the newest sound-oriented compositions.

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 In Volumina for organ, composed in 1962, Ligeti
employs a graphic score which consists of a schematic
picture of the layout of the manuals and pedals. The
notation is relatively precise in terms of pitch and
register, with register indicated in the vertical axis,
and time in the horizontal. The music consists of an
evolving texture of clusters with dynamic and registral
changes. There is no canonic technique present.
Ironically, the genesis of the technique of canonic
procedures in sound mass may be found in Poème Svmphoniaue.
1962, a work in which pitch plays no role whatsoever.
There is no notated score for this piece, but rather,
verbal directions to the conductor and performers, consist
ing of the starting of all the metronomes and the vacating
of the stage immediately thereafter. The piece consists
of a gradual running down of all metronomes. By Ligeti's
own admission this piece has an extra-musical message; it
represents "a criticism of the current musical situation"
in terms of the prevalence of "chance music to the point
of absurdity" and "the total mechanization of performance."1*
While Poème Svmphoniaue belongs to that facet of Ligeti's
work which consists of aesthetic statement as much as
musical statement, 5 the work nevertheless is pivotal in
terms of the use of canonic technique in the development
of sound mass. In this piece the metronomes are actuated
at different speeds creating a form of rhythmic polyphony.
Each metronome gradually moves slower and slower until it
stops. Since each metronome has an analogous rhythm but
at a different speed, the result is rhythmic canons in
augmentation and diminution. Each rhythmic canon consists
of an extended equal-note motion at the particular indi
cated metronome speed, which at its conclusion slows down
to a complete stop. Having articulated his abstract con
ception of canonic sound mass, Ligeti soon adds the element
of pitch in works such as Lux Aeterna and Lontano.
The use of a contrapuntal texture so complex as to
become a textural totality rather than merely the sum of
its details is not without historical precedent. Giovanni
Gabrieli's Canzon per Sonar Septimi et Octavi Toni from
the 1957 set of pieces is a good example from the polychoral
Venetian school. It possesses three separate, four-part
choruses which at times appear together in an extremely
intricate counterpoint. Were it not for the simplicity
of the harmonic language, the melodic lines would be lost
in the totality of the texture. Thomas Tallis' Spem in
Allium, composed several years earlier, has ^0 separate
voices divided into eight choirs of five parts each.
"Kommt, ihr Toechter, helft mir Klagen," the opening double
chorus of Bach's Passion According to St. Matthew, has
two four-part choruses and a unison boys' choir moving at
different speeds. Occasionally, all nine parts plus the
orchestra are present simultaneously. °

2b

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 An early use by Llgeti of canonic sound mass may be
ffiund In Atmospheres (1961). At measure bb, study-letter
(Hi, an elaborate multi-voiced canonic texture suddenly
appears after a grand pause. The canon begins In midstream,
as It were, as If It had somehow begun earlier and now
is suddenly made perceptible to the listener. There are
b& voices in this canon in addition to the sustained chro
matic cluster in the string basses. The idea of suddenly
initiating or concluding such contrapuntal textures in
in midstream is one that recurs in Llgeti's works. 7
Instead of beginning in midstream, canonic sound mass
becomes the primary organizational approach to the musical
texture in Lux Aeterna and Lontana. As is the case in
Atmospheres, there are present numerous canons at the
unison or octave in close proximity to one another, but
now they are introduced gradually, one at a time, and result
in a unison whose timbre constantly changes as a new instru
ment enters. As each individual part successively approaches
its second linear pitch, there is a sort of gradual,
timbral-harmonic transition from the domination of one
pitch to another. As more pitches enter linearly the number
of simultaneous pitch-timbral units is increased producing
an everchanging, musical, textural web. As the piece pro
gresses, several of these textural webs appear simultaneously.
These are supported by false entries or doublings of one or
more pitches of the canon which are more timbrai decor
ations than part of the dominating harmonic-timbrai flow. 8
For Ligeti. the blurring of melodic-harmonic concepts
as a result of the canonic procedure has its genesis not
only in the musical sphere as we have seen, but also in the
poetic as well. In a letter to Ove Nordwall dated February
22, 1967, Gyorgy Ligeti speaks about the composition of
Lontano. which at that time he was in the process of com
pleting:

"By chance I found verses in an ode of Keats,

which are closely connected to this music—in any
case, in my imagination:
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, opening in the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." 9
Ligeti goes on to deny the existence of a specific program
to the piece, but admits to having read the Keats poem
years before, and states that it«is the idea of seeing
"faery lands forlorn" through the distorting "glasses of
the ocean" water which excites his interest. He also speaks
of the "vast stained glass window of St. Chapelle, where,
when the sun shines from outside, one feels as if locked
inside in the middle of a diamond: in a thousand sparklings
this crystal seems to move about." 10 The use of canonic
technique described above is analogous to such metaphorical
utterances. 11

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 Ligeti describes Lontano as "a window to dream worlds
of childhood long ago forgotten, seen through curious, soft
crystal formations." 12 Elsewhere Ligeti describes this
Kafkaesque dream world in the following way« a huge fibrous
and filmy web fills his room and in it are embedded bugs,
beetles, moths and a heavy moisture soiled pillow. Some of
the creatures temporarily break free causing undulating
movements throughout the web behind which a few candles
blink in a kind of iridescence. Each change in the web
is irreversible. "There was something inexpressibly sad
about this process, the hopelessness of elapsing time, and
a past for which no amends could be made." 13
Two conceptual elements emerge from these very per
sonal metaphorical statements: Ligeti's concern with the
imagined, the mysterious, with the beautiful yet fright
ening and distant (as in "faery lands forlorn").* and his
preoccupation with gradual transformation and distortion of
a sound object (as in "though the glas3hs of the ocean"
and "in a thousand sparklings this crystal seems to move
about").
"Lontano" literally means far or distant, and it is
with the creation of the sensation of musical distance
that Ligeti concerns himself. It is not the sensation of
actual spatial relationships associated with antiphonal
composition as in Stockhausen's Gruppen or Carter's Double
Concerto, but rather the perception of an implied, suggested,
or even associative space. Ligeti mentions the close of
Mahler's Fifth Symphony as an example of this kind of
implied spatial relationship. 1V Here the solo flute echoes,
in a transposition, the material of the trumpet call which
immediately precedes it. The physical location of the two
instruments is immaterial. It is rather the tone color
and dynamic change that creates the impression of distance.
Ligeti also mentions a place in the coda of the slow
movement of Bruckner's Eighth Symphony where "in a great
silence and softness, suddenly four horns play a passage
that sounds almost like a quote from Schubert but seen from
Bruckner's viewpoint." 15 Ligeti goes on to compare this
passage to the horn entrance at IAAI (measure 1>+5) in the
last part of Lontano. The two passages are not similar to
one another in technical terms other than the sudden ap
pearance of the tone color of horns at an important struc
tural point. In both passages the tone color of the horns
creates associations with earlier works--for the Bruckner
symphony, distance associations with Schubert are conjured
up, and for the Ligeti work, distance associations with
Bruckner and other Romantic composers are similarly evolved.
The idea of distortion of a relatively fixed sound
object is a corollary of the preoccupation with the aes
thetic and literary distance relationships implicit in the
title of Lontano. For our aural sense one way that an

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impression of distance at least partially can be set up
is through the creation of different degrees or gradations
of separation of various components of a sound object.
The use of particular musical elements in a unified manner
(as in the case of all individual parts sharing the same
pitch or rhythmic pattern) creates an easily perceivable
musical context in which the mind can grasp the details.
Conversely, great variance in the employment of a particu
lar musical element can create a degree of complexity in
which the mind may not be able to perceive the details.
This latter situation would seem to be analogous to visual
distance perspective. In visual perception, close objects
are apprehended in greater detail. While the philosophical
significance of this matter may be questioned endlessly
(since it pertains in essence to the mind-body problem
which has plagued generations of our greatest philosophical
minds), it is precisely the dualism on which Ligeti has
based his structural organization of Lontano. Clarity (or
closeness) for Ligeti is established in unison or octave
doublings of an individual pitch. Blurring or distance
is set up through the employment of the canonic technique
and the introduction of sustained tones. Ligeti's problem
is to generate a structure which will support eleven
minutes of such an evolving distance relationship in the
context of the modern orchestra. He does this by having
each of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale appear in
clearest unison form, and closest, if you will, once in
the course of the composition. Moreover, his use of these
pitches is reducible to a symmetrical interval class
structure analogous to the crystal formations or "magic
casements" mentioned above in Seat's poem. It consists of
two symmetrical pairs of trichord sets (0 2 5) and (0 3 5)
which are inversionally related.

(0X4-) (OZA)
(oa>5)

Figure 1. Bilateral Trichordal Symmetry in the

Order of Appearance of Unison Pitch
Structures.

Furthermore, the two hexachords t^ave the same interval

content as shown by the interval vector [2 b 2 k 1 2J .
The canonic technique serves to obfuscate the clarity of
each pitch-structure thereby creating distance and distortion.
It could not be argued that linear canonic movement
is the only textural procedure present in this composition.
Each canon begins arid ends with a unison pitch 16 (in
virtue of the close spacing of linear entrances) and initial

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attacks of canonic linear material are sometimes doubled
and then sustained as decoration tones which are independent
of the canonic procedure. More concretely, a non-canonic
texture exists albeit in proportionately few measures.
This texture consists of widely-spaced non-canonic entries.
These long sustained notes may enter on a single pitch, two
pitches, or at most three pitches at one time. They differ
from the decoration tones in that they appear alone and do
not double a canonic linear tone. This texture is generally
rather widely spaced, employing clusters of chromatic tones
in each register. Pitches in the same register often appear
in instruments of the same family (strings, winds or brass)
and possess similar dynamic markings, thereby producing the
greatest amount of overtone combinations and resonance.
Doubling occurs in varying degrees in the single pitch, the
two and three pitch entries.
The major difference in dynamics between the canonic
texture and this independent sustained type lies in the
fact that the first type (canonic) is characterized by
numerous soft and almost imperceptible recurring entrances
of important structural pitches, whereas the second type
(sustained) possesses clear and distinct individual entries.
The Bogen or arch-like form of the composition is the result
of the organization of the three textural types. Each of
the large formal divisions is itself defined by the three
fold textural process of unison pitches (with octave doublings
except for the opening of the piece) followed by canons and
concluded with sustained clusters. The form is interdep
endent with the pitch structure, though their details are
not exactly coincidental:

U=Unison, 0=0ctave Doublings of Single Pitches, C=Canonic,

S=Sustained.

AAA
1 2 3
_A_

0 0 Ö0
PI n
n
Form 0
Div. C C s
CO

Struct. E F
Pitches Ab C Bb A F# G D# B C#
D

Meas
Nos."
Nos.' 1
1 31
31 56
56 78
78 120
120 137
137 150 151

Figure 2. Large Formal Divisions and Pitch Structure

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 The melodic procedure of the canonic texture is
rather simple. It consists of chromatic intervals gen
erally smaller than a perfect fourth which surround the
initial pitch of each linear canonic unit. Thus, the
first canonic unit of the piece which lasts until study
letter Q|j (on pA of the score) consists of the following
pattern which is introduced in the myriad of canonic
entrances of the first measures:

bo tf ffl -**-*0
VP T°~ .TT* -f

Figure 3. Linear Chromatic Motion within the

Range of a Perfect Fourth.

This melodic material is not the primary purpose of the

musical flow. The polyphony is the composer's procedure,
whereas the harmony is what the listener perceives. 17
Since entrances vary in speed, some notes of each pattern
are holding while others continue to enter. (Tie result is
the conversion of the linear aspect to a harmonic one. As
various patterns onfold, specific interval clusters are
held at different moments as a result of the continuous
entry and exit of each member of the patterns. Not only
does the harmonic resultant vary for a single pattern, it
varies similarly when two or more patterns are present,
resulting thereby in an ever-shifting harmony, with sub
harmonies also shifting at different speeds. Equally im
portant, as the patterns and their concomitant harmonies
shift, the total harmonic resultant varies in clarity from
clouded over to crystallized, because of constant changes
in the degree and register of doublings. It should be
noted once more that certain pitches are presented merely
as sustained background and do not take part in the canonic
relationships. Each of these nevertheless affects the
harmony as a pervasive presence (analogous to a pedal in
earlier music).
The question remains as to how Ligeti generates new
canonic linear patterns. Continuous repetition of the same
linear unit would after a short while become uninteresting.
Hence, an obvious procedure is now and again to introduce
new canonic units. Starting in measure 1U- for example, a
new unit consists of the pitch classes E, F#, G# in octave
doubling. Logically, it is possible to connect two ad
Joining patterns (each in a different set of instruments)
by virtue of related pitch content. If the new canonic
unit appears before the old one is finished, this is termed
cross-canonic. At letter (TQ , for example, the violas are
completing their canonic unit while the second violins
enter with a new unit:

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 viotss . second violins

Figure *+. Cross-canonic Pitch Pattern.

The bracketed pitches define the cross-canon.

If, on the other hand, a linear canonic unit in a

particular group of instruments ends completely, and then
a new pattern in the same group of instruments begins
possessing some of all the same pitches, but not limited
to them, this process is termed "canonic metamorphosis".
An example of this procedure takes place from measures 17
■+0 where the following canonic metamorphosis occurs.

fc fr° tffl fro fr° afro fr°~frg—f~fr ^ ® O 11 *°#oc , It

(ty ° ' - f
0

Figure 5» Metamorphosing Canonic Pattern.

A special type of canonic metamorphosis may be termed

"truncation". Here a new pattern in the same group of
instruments consists of a shortened version of its pre
cedent. For example, at measure 105 the string basses
alter a repeating pattern by gradually "shrinking" its
pitch content:

HI bo
Vo bn'\

Figure 6. Truncated Canonic Pattern.

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 The variety of the usage of the canonic technique
throughout the composition is summarized in the following
table:

>>
1—1 t)
0 •H
txO > c
c ft TJ o
ft to 0 £
to to P a cd
O 0 cd Ph o
Ph o 0 1 to
ft to txO £ ft w £
u c O P ft lfN CO ft
o ^ ^ u t-i cd o o to
a <d (Xj ft p ft T Ph o
cd -p o p
-p -p ft
<D cd - Ph
S ft * &0 0 O w
c co p a a
•H a cd cd Ph
p Ph Ph ft 0
cd 0 0 0 P
0 p ft a p
o ftp 0 0
ft ^ 0 cd oo CO c# ft
C Q ft ft on
o
H

§ to m ft
o a ft
■ p cs
to 0 &D C\]
to -P o C
O ft ft ft
P cd ro 0 CO
Oft . o o
Cxi
^ cd ft to
o o U C /—>

^ 1 O Ph
co a 0 to 0
to oy to cd p <p P ft
c O P P ft •H P
Ph ^ Ph 0 Cd o\
0 PQ O a ft vO £ >.P o
p Ph P O t3
0 p
p-d^lN
P 0 ft
cd ft £ 0
0 to ft ft O >
p c d p p
cd P-< 0 h tO W •

^ O) P Ph Ph d ft
cd -p bO 0 0 0 ft
ftp C p > p ft
0 Cd CN ft G a K ft
CO ft lf\ ft CO P P 0

ft

II ft „

0 0
to • •
Ph to ••
Ph to
d> c 0 0 c 2 0
o TJ u o 'd h
•H 0 3 •H 0 3
to p o to p o CO
cd o o cd o o 0
0 0 u 0 0 Ph 0
Section: I S CO ft s CO ft

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 NOTES

1. See David Cope, New Directions in Music (Dubuque, 1971).

2. John Vinton, "A Change of Mind," Music Review. Vol. XXXV,
No. 3-1* (Nov. 197*+), 307.

3. Henry Cowell, New Musical Resources (New York, 1930).

*+. In a letter to Ove Nordwall cited in Ove Nordwall,
Gvorev Lieetl. Eine Monographie (Mainz, 1971)» 7ff.
5. Die Zukunft der Musik (1961), is another example of
this aspect of Ligeti's composition. In this work, the
performer, a lecturer slated to give a talk on new
music, attempts to elicit audience reaction (presumably
vehement) by saying absolutely nothing.

6. I am grateful to Gwyneth Roberts for this example.

7. At the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt,

July 1976, Ligeti indicated in a lecture at which the
author was present that San Francisco Polvponie for
orchestra ends "as if suddenly cut off in midstream."

8. See Robert Rollin, The Process of Textural Change

and the Organization of Pitch in Ligeti's 'Lontano"
(Doctoral Thesis, Cornell University 1973) for a
more detailed discussion of this procedure.

9. Ove Nordwall, Gvorgy Ligeti, Eine Monographie (Mainz

1971), 87ff. All citations from German language
sources have been translated by the author.

10. Ibid.. 90.

11. Joseph Hausier, "Interview mit Gyorgy Ligeti,"

Melos. Vol. 37 (Nov. 1968): *+96-507.

12. Nordwall, op. cit., 87ff.

13. Gyorgy Ligeti, "Zustande, Ereignisse, Wanklungen,"
Melos. Vol. 3*+ (1967): 165-67

1*+. Hausler, 0£. cit.. 500-1.

15. Ibid.

16. Since entrances of separate canons sometimes overlap,

such unison pitch structures do not always appear by
themselves. For example Ab structure at the opening,

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 the C structure at measure ko and the Bb and E structures
at measure 56 appear alone; but the A structure entering
In measure 60 never appears by itself.

17. Hausler, 0£. cit.. 502.

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