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States, Events and Transformations
Explorations of the sound continuum
The world of natural sound is a multivariable continuum of noises,
timbres and tones, states and events, transitions and transformations,
change and regularity.
In the 1950's and early 60's, the composers Iannis Xenakis and GyörgyLigeti began to explore the vast and many-faceted continuum of sound by
composing sonorous states, events and transformations in musical spaces
of timbre, intensity and movement. They changed the direction and scope
of contemporary art music in a crucial way by introducing fundamental
innovations in the technique of composition which permit music to
approach the continuum of natural sound, thus bridging a gap between
listening to music and listening to the world.
Their pioneer works are Metastasis (1953-54) and Pithoprakta (1955-56)by Xenakis, Apparitions (1958-59) and Atmospheres (1961) by Ligeti. In these
works, they dissociated themselves from the European art music tradition
by avoiding melody and harmony, and by giving low priority to well-
defined pitch or altogether avoiding tones of clearly discernible pitch.
The two composers conceived their musical innovations independently of
each others, but it seems significant that their individual fates were
marked by particular common features. Both were born in Eastern Europe
in Romanian territory, but in families speaking a different language. Ligeti
was born in 1923 of Hungarian parents of Jewish origin in central Transsyl-
vania, Xenakis in 1922 of Greek parents in Braila near the mouth of the
Danube.
During World War II, both composers escaped death several times.Ligeti could easily have been killed in 1944, when he was conscripted to
unload munition trains at a railroad junction which was regularly attacked