Reading Relationships
IN THE GRAPHIC SCORE
Often the relationships between gestures
may say more
than the gestures themselves.
Threads outline melodic contours (as above, in the case of the second Capriccio movement) and join harmonic progressions (in the case of the first Dialogo movement, below). These melodic and harmonic threads contrast with the vertical chordal pillars and the interlocking of voices in stretto (see the next slide, and the bleeding colours in ‘Gesture: Music-Art-Dance’).
Brackets create a visual space for silence. No matter how fleeting, silences must be observed.
Silences in the Sonata are always marked with brackets; spaces left between images represent perceived—
rather than defined—flexibility within the music.
These are the basic materials of the graphic score: threads unite; pillars structure; arrows direct; brackets and dots offset.
Development: Expansion & Sequence vs. Accumulation & Transformation
The subject
This simple shape grows and diminishes with the musical phrase. Within this shape, the interaction between blue and yellow re-creates the tension in the melody.
The Answer
The response to the first subject is comprised of three independent figures.
Each of these shapes serves as a template for the brush strokes that later accrue,
providing the volume for the portrayal of harmonic activity within.
These two subsequent images (left and below) show the expansion of this shape to include musical events over the course of the movement. These blue and yellow brackets make it clear where musical ideas begin and end (or where they leave off and begin again, or join together).
In the middle of the bottom line, interaction of shape and colour produces an anomaly.
This is the only instance in the whole movement in which one melodic element
imitates the distinct figuration of another element (hence the colour of the second
figure and shape of the third figure).
These two sets of images are excerpted from the Dialogo movement of the graphic score. Each line reads left to right, and images progress
from top to bottom. While the first musical subject on the left develops linearly, each of the subsections of the musical answer on the right
changes first in volume, then in shape. Space contained within the brackets at left visually contrasts with space between
the independent melodic shapes at right.
Framing
Faint sponge strokes at the corners and centre of the first page represent washes of pizzicato-glissando sound;
through their placement, these chords frame the first musical subject and its reflected repetition.
Inversion
Above, upended slurs support the thread of melody that travels through the watery medium of primary colour. The memory of this passage
is recalled at bottom: now muted colours hung by fluorescent green thread—all surrounded by grey—transmit the strangeness of inversion
in the music. It is a familiar gesture only in shape; now it is foreign and other.
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in context:
The Dialogo is arranged by the appearances of the main subject and its response, which constitute the melodic material for the movement. The first and second pages are spatially oriented, while the last three pages feature horizontal lines read left to right and down the page.
The Capriccio is read from left to right across sixteen pages, first along the horizontal top line until halfway through the piece, after which the notation continues along the bottom line. This layout of the score foremost emphasises the division of the Capriccio into two larger sections.
Above, the graphic score is synced with a recording
of the Ligeti Solo Cello Sonata, by Hungarian cellist Miklós Perényi.
to read more...
Ligetilines Process: Explaining Painting
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