Affinities and innovations in selected piano music of Béla Bartók and György Ligeti

Abstract

This dissertation studies the similarities and differences between selected piano works of Béla Bartók and György Ligeti. Brief biographies of the two composers and their compositional styles are presented to provide background context and framework. The examples studied in this dissertation are selected movements from Bartók’s Bagatelles, Out of Doors, and Mikrokosmos as well as Ligeti’s Invention, Musica Ricercata, and Fanfares. Through comparative analysis, this dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: How much did Bartók influence Ligeti, not only in his early period, but also in the later part of his career? How did this influence evolve as Ligeti continued to develop his own style? Which of Bartók’s compositional traits influenced Ligeti the most, and how did they serve Ligeti in advancing his own innovation as a composer? Ultimately, my analysis demonstrates that Ligeti metamorphosed not only through the “mother tongue” of Bartók, but through the land of folk music, other composers whose work he valued, other cultures that fascinated him (Indonesian, African, Cuban, and Brazilian), and other nutrients from all disciplines (philosophy, literature, the sciences) to become a hugely influential composer at the end of the twentieth century.