Le jeu de la mémoire et de l’invention dans le Trio pour cor, violon et piano de György Ligeti

Abstract

In György Ligeti’s Trio for horn, violin and piano (1982), a relatively classical
formal appearance and a generalized consonance support a complex internal
elaboration. This paper endeavours to understand in what ways the tradition
nurturing the score is integrated into its creative process. The emphasis is laid on the
mechanisms by which inherited elements acquire a significant dynamic potential.
Beethoven’s contribution, readable at a first level in the form of a recurring
quotation, is envisaged through the elaboration of the material and the modeling of
the musical time. The composer’s subjectivity progressively emerges from the
background of the collective memory invoked. In a second part, the analysis of
mnemonic strategies put into action in the Trio leads to evidencing a general
progression within which emerge the constituents of the last movement, the
expressive climax of the work.