Materials and Process in the Ligeti and Adès Violin Concertos

Ligeti and Adès each begin their violin concertos with an oscillating dyad played by the solo violinist, a perfect fifth or twelfth from which the rest of the movements emerges. This initial seed, cultivated in the fertile minds of two composers with idiosyncratic approaches to musical material and process, sprouts and diverges into two very different movements. Despite their differences, these two movements invite comparison because of shared step-wise voice leading principles and rhythmic layering. Underneath the intricate surface of the music, ascending and descending linear motion creates a framework or skeleton for the pitch content of large sections of these two movements. In this comparative analysis, I will examine each composer’s attitude towards the initial material and their processes of elaboration. Adès has also commented at length on Ligeti’s music in his book of interviews with Tom Service; these comments will clarify the influences on his thinking and draw distinctions between the two composers’ compositional attitudes. In the Ligeti, the fifth becomes subsumed in an increasingly dense texture, comprised of several harmonically independent layers. The Adès features a similar increase in textural activity, but the identity and role of the fifth remains clear; his harmonic progressions result from a system of intervallic stability and instability. While Adès also uses rhythmic and harmonic layering, his layers often operate under the same set of intervallic rules. I will argue that Adès’s compositional energies seem focused on the specific and local, whereas Ligeti favors a broad, sweeping viewpoint