The Performance Practice of Electroacoustic Music: a practice-based exchange between musicology and practice

Pièce électronique No. 3

Introduction

In the fall of 1957 Ligeti began working on a realization score for Pièce électronique No. 3. The score contains 11 pages with frequencies and time information for groups of single frequencies that are superimposed to form structures and their distribution on for channels. (cf. Nordwall, Ligeti-dokument). First attempts to realize the piece were undertaken at the Cologne studio in November 1957. In April 1958, Ligeti resumed work and also began to work on a volume score (Lautstärkenpartitur) that was left unfinished. The piece itself was never realized. Possibly, this was due to the limitations of the studio technique of the day that would not allow for a practical way to produce and accurately synchronize more than forty separate layers with individual envelopes. The compositional concept for Pièce électronique No. 3 was strongly influenced by the idea of « Bewegungsfarbe » (movement color), a concept involving auditive phenomena related to micro montage. Ligeti had assisted Koenig in 1957 in the realization of Essay which makes use of said concept and would draw on it in his own work (see Musik und Technik in Ligeti Gesammelte Werke vol. 1, p. 237 ff.).

In 1996, Kees Tazelaar and Johan van Kreij undertook a realization at the Institut voor Sonologie am Koninklijk Konservatorium in Den Haag using Csound.