Federico Favali: Beyond the Clouds: On Affinities between Ideas of Karl Popper and Music of György Ligeti / Matthew Hall: Aspects of John Coltrane’s music as a pedagogical framework for compositional development

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Federico Favali – Beyond the Clouds: On Affinities between Ideas of Karl Popper and Music of György Ligeti

The musical thought of György Ligeti (1923-2006) has undergone various influences from extra-musical fields. That of the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994) occupies a prominent place, as can be seen in interviews and notes. The most emblematic case is Clocks and Clouds, a piece for orchestra written in the years 1972-1973. Beyond this, there are other points of affinity between these two intellectuals. This presentation aims to highlight three of them, exploring their influence on the speaker’s own creative output. Ligeti welcomed structures and rhythms from extra-European cultures and refused a sterile experimentalism, thus demonstrating an open vision. This eclecticism can be related to the concept of an open society, including diversity, which Popper juxtaposed to the concept of a closed society. Moreover, the composer developed  ‘microtonality’, a technique in which different layers proceed as a counterpoint and, without being perceived individually, create spatial and timbral effects. This can be compared to Popper's theory of the ‘three worlds’, in particular to the ‘third world’. In fact, the ‘third world’ is the one generated by the second that is made up of ideas. The third world is that of the products of ideas combined among the three worlds. In both cases, therefore, one reality (sounds or ideas) generates another reality. Finally, the fact that, according to Ligeti, musical analysis is not a description of the score, but a critique of its reception explains why one piece sounds beautiful to the listener. This approach is reflected in Popper's idea that reason does not have a demonstrative function but only a critical task.

Matthew Hall – Aspects of John Coltrane’s music as a pedagogical framework for compositional development  

John Coltrane, who was notoriously silent on the subject of his methods of composition, left a pedagogical legacy that is available to all who care to delve deeply into his musical philosophy.  A close friend who shared in much of his research, Yusef Lateef, catalogued ‘global scales’ in his Repository of melodic scales and patterns, many of which were derived from the infamous ‘Coltrane tone clock’, published on the first page of the thesaurus in 1981.  The ‘tone clock’ itself provides a visual aid to performing transformations of pitch-class sets in the manner of set and group theory such as they apply to tonal and atonal music. The cyclical nature of the tone clock especially lends itself to visualizing repeating intervallic patterns, which were explored and integrated into his soundworld.  One example exploring how the diagram can be used for music composition is presented in the form of a free app that allows instrumentalists to visualize complex rhythmic patterns, intervallic structures and transformations of pitch class sets. Developed through a study of John Coltrane’s recorded albums, performances, handwritten scores and radio interviews that are illustrative of aspects of John Coltrane’s compositional practice and that are evident in selected pieces from 1962-65. 

About the speakers