Clocks and Clouds (for 12 female voices and orchestra)

Clocks and Clouds — Gyorgy Ligeti
for 12 female voices and orchestra (1973)

« Clocks and Clouds » for 12-part women’s chorus and orchestra. Music accompanied by the video « A Space Journey » and the original video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un5SEJ… from the user « Impermanence ». It should also be noted that the idea of pairing this work with outer-space scenery is not mine. A similar video was posted a while back, but it is no longer here.

Ligeti’s « Clocks and Clouds » is a relatively-short composition from 1972-1973 that takes its title from Karl Popper’s 1966 philosophical essay « Of Clouds and Clocks ». In this, Popper makes a compelling and easily-understood argument that scientific phenomena can be broken down into two main categories. The « clocks » are things that we can depend on such as, well, clocks. A clock can be easily measured, taken apart, and reconstructed. « Clouds », on the other hand, are things that we can only get a general, macroscopic view of — things whose inner-workings we are unable to understand in a deterministic way. A cloud cannot be easily measured nor can it be taken apart. Furthermore, Popper argues that clouds are really made up of a cumbersome number of clocks — so many that the whole cannot be understood completely. It isn’t at all surprising that the meteorologist Edward Lorenz was making major breakthroughs in what we now tend to call « chaos theory » — most easily defined by a sensitivity to initial conditions. Lorenz’s major work in this area is known as « The Butterfly Effect » from the famous question he posed « can the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil cause a tornado in Oklahoma? »

Throughout the 1960s, Ligeti was composing in two distinct styles described perfectly by Popper’s essay. The « clouds » category includes works such as « Atmospheres » (1961), Lontano (1967), and the first movement from his « Cello Concerto » (1966). Examples of pieces falling under the « clocks » description are the third movement of his « Chamber Concerto » (1969) and the third movement of his « String Quartet No. 2 » (1968). This « mechanical » style can be traced back to his semi-comical 1962 « Poem Symphonique pour 100 Metronomes », in which 100 metronomes are wound-up and left to unwind at various tempos.

While compositions such as the « Chamber Concerto » and « String Quartet No. 2 » do include both « clouds » and « clocks », they are presented in separate movements. It is in « Clocks and Clouds » where Ligeti seamlessly connects one to the other. Being one of his last works in this micropolyphonic style, it is a great summing up of a stylistic period.