Atmosphères

Atmosphères is an orchestral work by György Ligeti from the year 1961. Arose between February to July of the year and was premiered at the Donaueschingen Music Festival on October 22, 1961. The plant is considered a key work within the new music and was mainly due to the use in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey fame. The total duration is about nine minutes.

Music

A characteristic feature of the work is differentiated, micro polyphonic system. The systems in 87 -run, self-employed individual voices merge into a large, no longer separable overall sound that oscillates quasi and constantly changing. The 4/4-time is as a pulse generator for the piece is not decisive, but only serves to synchronize the individual voices and chronological structure. Ligeti sought by Atmosphères to move away from a structurally imaginary way of composing. Thus we read in the program of the first performance:

" In Atmosphères I tried to overcome the structural compositional thinking, which replaced motivic- thematic, and thereby realize a new form of presentation. In this musical form, there are no events, but only states; no contours and shapes, just the unpopulated, imaginary musical space; and the tone, the actual support of the form, be - released from the musical forms -. values ​​in their own "

Again and again follow rising and falling, long held, is partly changing giant cluster each other directly, so the cause associations of a space scene. Soon a cluster screwed into ever higher layers until it is removed suddenly from a deep Kontrabasstosen. Again, bright shades blend into the overall sound, which eventually frees himself from the deep hum, then repeatedly blow like increased, soon will be buzzing, wind up gaining the upper hand and offer a tooting - shattering sound. The action calmed down, towards the end of the piece the instruments perform only light, almost already melodious vibrations. After a last small swelling of the sound as it disappears into nothingness.

The work also provides a first employment Ligeti with East Asian music dar. He radicalized him static effects, such as those produced in non-European musical cultures by the uniformity of the temporal Ablaufsm by strict metrication, diverse rhythms and above all, extremely long tempos.

Semantically - associative aspects

Commenting on the Atmosphères under the heading " structures in the structure lots " says Harald Kaufmann, it was " at such a pronounced composed on the material aspect towards piece surprising" that in the musical structure a subliminal level of meaning " hinted " will. Ligeti have dedicated the score to the memory of Mátyás Seiber and " actually [ ... ] while the composition at the presentation of a requiem mass within the material sphere of thought. " Ligeti wanted to know construed so that " as it were in the basement, in the distance, in the subliminal, a requiem is going on. " the " material texture " was designed as authorizing associations " that have points of contact with the associations according to the old Requiem sequence. "

A significant semantically key point is the already mentioned above, about taking place in the middle of the piece tilting from the highest heights of the violins and piccolos in the depth of the double basses. " Ligeti admits to have thought here in a fall in tartaro. " A subsequent 56- part canon opens via a gradual narrowing of the frequency band in a kind of "funnel". " This is the moment to think of the beginning of the Dies irae. After passing through the narrow gate, after a short, seeming rest, heard the tuba mirum, the wonderful sounding trombone. This association arises from the aggregation of all Blechbäser. Particularly dark and ominous [ ... ] is the sound mix of four trumpets in the deepest layer. [ ... ] Soon after, [ ... ] diluted in the texture of the chromatic diatonic cluster to cluster. This is the material aspect of the conciliatory after the terror: Agnus Dei, dona eis requiem ".

Reception

The premiere, in which the Symphony Orchestra of the Southwest Radio played under the direction of Hans Rosbaud, led the audience to such great appeal that immediate repetition was demanded. As a particularly sensational was Ligeti's work because Atmosphères broke through its target of structure with the superstructure of serial music. To greater popularity led to the use in Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi film " 2001: A Space Odyssey ", which were adopted without prior authorization of the composer. Later Ligeti in conversation with the WORLD editor Sven Ahnert, he would not have thought during the composition work on " cosmic things."