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Work

György Ligeti

György Ligeti Composer

Polifón etüd (Polyphonic Étude), for piano 4-hands   

Performances: 4
Tracks: 4
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Musicology:
  • Polifón etüd (Polyphonic Étude), for piano 4-hands
    Year: 1943
    Genre: Other Keyboard
    Pr. Instrument: Piano 4-Hands
This two-minute piece perhaps contains the seeds of the later radical style of music Ligeti would write. But at the time he wrote it he was a conservatory student in Hungary. The work is for four independent lines. It opens with one line, unaccompanied, for several measures. The second voice, when it enters, is in a completely separate key. Likewise the other two voices, which each take several more measures to enter. The piece continues to spin out, with each of the individual voices becoming more obsessed with its own material, which each voice continues to repeat over and over. As these musical phrases are of different lengths, there are different harmonic results as the overlap. Just as the piece has developed this technique and idea to the fullest, the music ends abruptly on a highly dissonant "slam" chord which seems to simultaneously sound all the harmonic implications of what has gone on before. An inventive and truly musical composition, despite the above description which might incorrectly suggest that this is merely theoretical music.

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