Ageing of the new: the museum of musical modernism

RESISTING CLOSURE: THE PASSACAGLIA FINALE FROM GYÖRGY LIGETI'S LE GRAND MACABRE

“…The Passacaglia has received a great deal of attention from scholars in terms of Ligeti's compositional development and move in the direction of intervallic transparency following works characterised by textural saturation, such as the ‘Introitus’ from the Requiem (1963–5) and Lontano (1967). Alastair Williams perceives the opera as a turning point in Ligeti's gradual reclamation of melody and harmony ‘because of its return to harmonic progression, particularly in the final scene’ (, p. 514). Paul Griffiths suggests that ‘dislocated tonal harmony’ arrives in parts of the Le Grand Macabre , as well as in the harpsichord pieces Hungarian Rock and Passacaglia ungherese (both 1978): ‘a harmony in which simple consonances return, but not in the right order, producing a disturbing or comic effect of tilting’ (, p. 359).…”