Presenters:
Blake Liahona Allen

György Ligeti’s Viola Sonata (1991–1994) draws deeply from the folk traditions of his Romanian homeland and the ethnomusicological legacy of Béla Bartók. This lecture will explore how indigenous Romanian flute traditions, Bartók’s parlando rubato style, and Ligeti’s lifelong emulation of Bartók converge in the sonata’s musical language—with a special focus on the first movement, Hora Lungă.

Attendees will trace connections between Old Hungarian and Old Romanian folk songs and Ligeti’s compositional structures, tempi, and stylistic choices. By identifying specific rhythmic, structural, and stylistic elements derived from Romanian and Hungarian sources, participants will learn to recognize the folk traditions and instruments that influenced the sonata. The lecture will also demonstrate how an ethnomusicological context can inform interpretative choices, enabling performers to apply this understanding to their own practice.

Through score excerpts, historical imagery, and audio/video examples, the lecture will reveal how Ligeti incorporates the performance practices, pitch contents, and tuning systems of Balkan shepherd and peasant flutes, alongside Bartók’s folk-song classifications: the bocet, colindă, doină, and ceremonial dances. In doing so, attendees will connect Bartók’s research methods to Ligeti’s compositional approaches, deepening both historical knowledge and performance insight into one of the viola’s most iconic modern works.