Talk:Micropolyphony

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Requiem[edit]

Wouldn't Ligeti's "Requiem" be a better example of micropolyphony than his "Atmosphères"? The "Requiem" appeared in 2001 as well. I think that "Atmosphères" actually predates his micropolyphonic breakthroughs.

I think "Atmospheres" is a more well known example, and it is described, on All Classical Guide as beginning with a five-octave chromatic chord which parts then slowly drop away from leaving a tone cluster in the horns. Not that we need only have one example.Hyacinth 20:09, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Removed: Quote[edit]

  • In a later introduction to Apparitions, Ligeti recounted a horrific childhood dream whose image of a "web" he would associate with the "web of sound" created by micropolyphony:
  • As a small child I once had a dream that I could not get to my cot, to my safe haven, because the whole room was filled with a dense confused tangle of fine filaments. It looked like the web I had seen silkworms fill their box with as they change into pupas. I was caught up in the immense web together with both living things and objects of various kinds—huge moths, a variety of beetles—which tried to get to the flickering flame of the candle in the room; enormous dirty pillows were suspended in this substance, their rotten stuffing hanging out through the slits in the torn covers. There were blobs of fresh mucus, balls of dry mucus, remnants of food all gone cold and other such revolting rubbish. Every time a beetle or a moth moved, the entire web started shaking so that the big, heavy pillows were swinging about, which, in turn, made the web rock harder. Sometimes the different kinds of movements reinforced one another and the shaking became so hard that the web tore in places and a few insects suddenly found themselves free. But their freedom was short-lived, they were soon caught up again in the rocking tangle of filaments, and their buzzing, loud at first, grew weaker and weaker. The succession of these sudden, unexpected events gradually brought about a change in the internal structure, in the texture of the web. In places knots formed, thickening into an almost solid mass, caverns opened up where shreds of the original web were floating about like gossamer. All these changes seemed like an irreversible process, never returning to earlier states again. An indescribable sadness hung over these shifting forms and structure, the hopelessness of passing time and the melancholy of unalterable past events.

    — Gyorgy Ligeti, (Steinitz 2003, 7)

I removed the above lengthy quote as it has little to do with music. Hyacinth (talk) 01:23, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]