Artikulation (Ligeti)

Artikulation is an electronic composition by György Ligeti. Composed and notated in January and February 1958, the piece was prepared and recorded on magnetic tape from February to March with the assistance of Gottfried Michael Koenig and 's assistant, Cornelius Cardew, at the Studio for Electronic Music of the West German Radio (WDR) in Cologne. The piece consists of various types of sounds, "in conditions of aggregation." It "can be heard as a conversation without words." Ligeti explains in notes to the listening score (see below):

The piece is called 'Artikulation' because in this sense an artificial language is articulated: question and answer, high and low voices, polyglot speaking and interruptions, impulsive outbreaks and humor, charring and whispering.

The (3:53-55 long) piece, in quadraphonic sound, was premiered March 25, 1958 at WDR Cologne's 'Musik der Zeit' concert series and September 4, 1958 at Darmstadt. It was heard again March 1993 at the New England Conservatory, while for recordings it has been mixed down to stereophonic sound.

Ligeti had just fled from Budapest to Cologne in 1956, and Artikulation is the only one of three electronic pieces written in Cologne which remain in Ligeti's catalogue. He completed only two works in the electronic medium, however—Glissandi (1957) and Artikulation (1958)—before returning to instrumental music. A third work, originally entitled Atmosphères but later known as Pièce électronique Nr. 3, was planned, and though the technical limitations of the time prevented Ligeti from realizing it completely, it was finally realized in 1996 by the Dutch composers Kees Tazelaar and Johan van Kreij of the Institute of Sonology. See: List of compositions by György Ligeti. In composing Artikulation Ligeti, like many composers around him, was inspired by, "the age-old question of the relationship between music and speech," their approach greatly inspired by phoneticist Werner Meyer-Eppler.AllMusic's Blair Sanderson describes Artikulation as, "difficult to judge from its brevity and similarity to other tape experiments of the time."

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