Juxtaposition Of Conciseness And Complexity

Gyorgy Ligeti,one of the most influential composers of the 20th-century,devoted himself to the exploration of various extended composition techniques with a vast amount of works.He commented on his music that "My compositions might be described as the most complex minimalism music,but I prefer complexity rather than conciseness."This thesis focuses on Ligeti's Violin Concerto,which was composed on the 1990s.My goal is to compare the relationship between conciseness and complexity in Ligeti's music through analysis of his musical language.This thesis contains four parts.The first part discusses the resulting complex statement of those essentially minimal materials in Violin Concerto.The second part explores techniques Ligeti used to carve his complex texture.The third part discusses the organic usage of complexity under a rather concise structure.The fourth part argues that the core of the complex sound in Ligeti's music is in fact fairly simple and concise.The last section of my thesis is a summary,in which summarized the relationship between conciseness and complexity in Ligeti's Violin Concerto.