ContemporaryMusicReview Vol.25,No.3,June2006,pp.227–262 Gyo¨ rgy Ligeti and the Aka Pygmies Project Martin Scherzinger At the turn of the twentieth century, Gyo¨rgy Ligeti’s late piano music was performed in various European concert halls alongside music of the Aka Pygmies of Central Africa. The acclaimed project culminated in a CD on the Teldec label entitled Ligeti/Reich: African Rhythms (Pierre Laurent Aimard/Aka Pygmies) featuring works by Ligeti, alongsideworksbySteveReichandmusicoftheAka.Thispaperdescribesandevaluates the uneven critical reception of the project in relation to the precise formal connections between Ligeti’s etudes, on the one hand, and the music of the Aka, in particular, and African music, in general, on the other. It traces some of the African citations in Ligeti’s etudes to specific source materials, briefly describes the original function and context of the music (even if they are not demonstrably known by the composer), and assesses the ideological dimensions implicit in the way the African materials are put to use in a Western context. Keywords: Gyo¨rgy Ligeti; Piano Etudes; Steve Reich; Aka Pygmies; African Music; Globalization I European and American composers have long fertilized their music with com- positional forms and techniques derived from non-Western music. Often associated withshiftsinmusicalstyle,orbreakswiththepast,thisliaisonhaspracticallybecome a representative modus operandi for Western musical production in modern times. Its influence ranging from Claude Debussy’s adoration of Indonesian polyphony to PhilipGlass’sembraceofrhythmicandmelodicprocedurestakenfromIndianmusic, non-Western music has served as an expressive resource for and claimed continued residencyinWesternmusicaldevelopment.Asthetwentiethcenturydrewtoaclose, the association of stylistic innovation with cross-cultural blending became pervasive; the observation that an era of unprecedented globalization and technological innovationhadengenderedmusicalstylesthatwereirreduciblyhybridandpluralistic became standard. In Gyo¨rgy Ligeti’s lexicon, for example, the very idea of technical ISSN0749-4467(print)/ISSN1477-2256(online)ª2006Taylor&Francis DOI:10.1080/07494460600726511 228 M. Scherzinger invention islinked totheartof ‘amalgamating’radicallydifferentspheresofmusical production: ‘Often one arrives at something qualitatively new by unifying two already known but separate domains’ (Ligeti, 1988, p. 4). For Ligeti, ‘All cultures, indeed the whole wide world, is the material of Art’ (in Steinitz, 2003, p. 315; see also Floros, 1996, p. 172). As if in a homologous development with this intellectual tradition, record companies and concert producers, too, increasingly employ marketing techniques whose novelty hinges on cultural border-crossing. From John Hassel’s experiments with the Zimbabwean mbira on Vernal Equinox to Glen Velez’s excursion in percussion techniques from around the globe on Rhythmicolor Exotica, crossover music and ethnic polystylism has practically become a staple in the music business today. Africanmusicinparticularhasbeencloselyassociatedwithvariousparadigmshifts throughout the twentieth century, a phenomenon that, while little examined or understood, is increasingly reflected in the writing of modern music history. In his recentmagnumopus,forexample,RichardTaruskinassociatesthe‘socialmeaning’of SteveReich’sminimalistmusic,itsnewcontextsformusicalperformanceintheearly 1970s in particular, with ‘African antecedents’ (Taruskin, 2005, p. 379). While he does not list any shared technical features, quotations, or precise appropriations by which we might properly assess the degree of influence African music had on the Reichianoeuvre,TaruskinnonethelessconnectsReich’sencounterwithAfricanmusic withstylisticinnovationandsocialcritique(ibid.,p.383).Thisarticleexaminessome ofthemusicalandideologicalambiguities producedbysuchcross-culturalexchange between Africa, on the one hand, and Europe and America, on the other. While it aspires to offer a multicultural historical account that demands recognition of non- Western cultural lineages (traceable to specific local expressive communities) in the formation of Western musical practice, it does not lose sight of the ideological mechanisms at work in such an exchange. As a test case, the article will focus on a single cultural item that appeared at the very end of the twentieth century: the Ligeti/Reich/Aka Pygmies project. In December 1999 famed pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard presented a concert- workshop at the Th´eaˆtre du Chaˆtelet in Paris, in which Ligeti’s music was presented alongside that of the Aka pygmies of Central Africa. The concept was repeated two years later in the Kammermusiksaal of the Philharmonie in Berlin. Ligeti introduced the first half of the concert in conversation with the pianist; and the Belgian ethnomusicologist Professor Simha Arom introduced the Aka musicians in the second half. The concert was titled Diesseits von Afrika: Gyo¨rgy Ligeti – Aka Pygma¨en: Zeitgeno¨ssische europa¨ische Kompositionen im Dialog mit der Musikkultur der Aka-Pygma¨en Zentralafrika, and the first half presented five of Ligeti’s etudes for piano and also his Drei Stu¨cke fu¨r Zwei Klaviere (1976).1 This was followed after the interval by fifteen songs by the Nzamba Lela choir from the Central African Republic. The concert was elucidated by a lavish booklet containing biographical information on Ligeti, Aimard, Irina Kataeva (the second pianist of Drei Su¨cke) and Arom, as well as two short essays by Ligeti, explaining his new-found admiration Contemporary Music Review 229 for African music (its paradoxical tactility, on the one hand, and its rhythmic illusionism, on the other), an essay by Peter Niklas Wilson, outlining the connection between aspects of Ligeti’s biography (in particular his exile status) and his noteworthy openness to a wide array of musical influences, and finally a description of an ‘expedition’ to the Aka pygmies of Central Africa by Stefan Schomann, adorned by vivid photos taken by Harald Schmitt of various unnamed Aka people, dancing and singing. Theacclaimed project culminated in a 2003 recording on the Teldec label entitled Ligeti/Reich: African Rhythms (Pierre Laurent Aimard/Aka Pygmies) and featuring, in interlocking order, two works by the American composer Reich, various piano etudes by Ligeti, and music of the Aka. The cover for the CD, designed by Thierry Cohen in shades of Sahara brown, suggests a polyrhythmic field of computer- generated rectangles, floating in an irregular geometric mosaic with no central referent. The CD has a different selection of Aka songs than those sung at the European concerts, but although the sleeve notes supply an essay by Arom and Schomann entitled ‘Dancers of the Gods’, the songs are not elucidated by notes on theirmusicalstructures,socialcontextsorhistories;neitheraretheAfricanmusicians identified by name. The songs are but unspecified tokens of a generalized ‘pygmy’ music. Some of the Aka excerpts are related to previously released CDs of Aka musicalrecordingscollectedbyAromoverthelastfortyyears.Differentincarnations of the tracks ‘Zoboko’, music to accompany a ritual preceding a hunt,and ‘Anduwa’, celebratory music following a successful hunt, for example, are represented on the collection Centrafrique: Anthologie de la Musique des Pygm´ees Aka, while ‘Mai’, another post-hunt song marking the capture of a large animal, is represented on MusicsandMusiciansoftheWorld:CentralAfricanRepublic.TheAfricanRhythmCD alsohasabookletthatincludesnotesbyAimard,describingthesharedcelebrationof rhythmandpulsebetweentheworksofthetwocomposersandthemusicoftheAka, aswellasnotesbyLigeti,firstdescribinghisfirstencounterwithSteveReichandthen outlining some basic impressions of sub-Saharan music, and notes by Reich, describing the compositional process of his Clapping Music. II TheLigeti/Reich/AkaPygmiesprojectisopen-endedandchallenging.Yetwedetectan elementofanxietyinitscriticalreceptioninthemedia,ananxietythatlargelyreflects uneasinessabout theethosof cross-cultural affinitiesin anage of drasticinequalities betweentheFirstWorldanditsSecondandThirdWorldhinterlands.Theuneasiness islargelysublimatedintoanargumentonaestheticgrounds.ThusAndrewClements, musiccriticattheGuardian,lamentsthe‘joltfromtheearthyabandonofthepygmy music to the rarefied world of Ligeti’s piano writing’ (Clements, 2003), while Laura Gallati, writing for WOZ Die Wochenzeitung, considers the comparison between ‘spontaneous’ Aka song and the ‘professional’ sound of the piano jarring and unacceptable: ‘On listening to the CD, one cannot spirit away comparisons, which 230 M. Scherzinger are in factimproper’ (‘Nicht aus der Weltzu schaffen beimAbspielen einer CDsind aber Vergleiche, die eigentlich unzula¨ssig sind’) (Gallati, 2003). The contrasting instrumentation was matched by the contrasting manner of dress on stage: Ligeti, Arom, and Aimard dressed up in formal European attire, while the Aka ensemble were scantily clad in grass skirts and bead necklaces. Gallati expands her argument against the blending of Western art music with African folk song by drawing on an ethnographic statement from the booklet, which reads, ‘[The Aka] language has no word for ‘family’; instead, ‘the camp’ forms the fundamental social unit’ (Arom & Schomann, 2003). ForGallati, thefundamentally communitarian aspect of Aka music is distorted and betrayed when the music is thus ‘transplanted from its own context’ (Gallati, 2003). This line of argument—the disavowal of African cultural difference—can be amplified in the context of writing music history. As an intervention, the Ligeti/ Reich/Aka Pygmies project, in this view, seems to disrupt the reigning ideology of Western artistic supremacy but only so as to reaffirm it. In Hal Foster’s terms, onemightargue,thetransgressiveotherishererecognizedonlytobeextractedagain. On the topic of a MoMA exhibition of ‘primitive’ alongside ‘modern’ art, Foster writes: The tribal/modern affinity is largely the effect of a decoding of the tribal (a ‘deterritorializing’ in the Deleuzian sense) and a recoding in specular modern terms. As with most formal or even structural approaches, the referent (the tribal socius) tends to be bracketed, if not banished, and the historical (the imperialist condition of possibility) disavowed. (Foster, 1985, p. 53) In the context of the Ligeti/Reich/Aka Pygmies project, this argument notes how the aestheticelevationandexhibitionofAkasongisultimatelyshoehornedintothelogic of affinity-effects. Aka agency is ultimately characterized only in technical musical terms. In this constrained, albeit rarefied, context even the names of the musicians can be effaced without contradiction. Thus Aka voices embody an ahistorical rhythmic field divorced from its specific operational referents and coordinates, and are thereby assimilated into what Michel Foucault calls a ‘historical-transcendental’ musical tradition: ‘an attempt to find, beyond all historical manifestation and historical origin, a primary foundation, the opening of an inexhaustible horizon, a plan which would move backward in time in relation to every event, and which would maintain throughout history the constantly unwinding plan of an unending unity’ (Foucault, 1972, p. 227). The ideological effect is to incorporate the other to tradition—first causing a rupture with tradition and then overcoming it—which ultimatelyservestheinterestsofaprogressivemusichistory,characterizedbyaquasi- deductive logical line of formal advances. As a former student of Ligeti’s notes, the Aka music in this venture was a mere ‘accessory’ to Ligeti’s musical innovations.2 At worst, then, the decontextualized African art in the Ligeti/Reich/Aka Pygmies projectsimplyrejuvenates,inaparadoxicalgestureofrecognitionanddisavowal,the continuity of Western tradition. Contemporary Music Review 231 On the other hand, many critics also note a kinship between these two musical worlds in ways that both dramatize Reich’s and Ligeti’s actual debt to African music andmenacethecommonplaceaestheticdichotomiesdividingthem.Amusiccriticfor klassik.com, for example, explains that the shared polyrhythmic structures (‘poly- rhythmischer Strukturen’) of these musics opens entirely new musical worlds (‘ganz neue musikalische Welten’), connecting cultures by effectively demonstrating the subtleinterchangeofinfluencebetweenthem(‘dassubtileWechselspielderEinflu¨sse’) (klassik.com,2003).MargareteZander,writingforRondomagazine,notesthewaythe bodily music of the Aka (‘durch den ganzen Ko¨rper pulsierenden und getragenen Rhythmik’), when set against the complexity of Ligeti’s etudes, suddenly haunts our perceptionofthemusic’spatterns.Shewrites,‘Theoldpatternsofhearingnolonger catch, yet new ones automatically emerge, and one asks oneself why one had not alreadyconceivedofLigeti’snewmusicasbodilyandAfricanmusicascomplex’(‘Die alten Ho¨rmuster greifen nicht mehr, aber es stellen sich automatisch neue ein und manfragtsich,warummannichtschoneherdieNeueMusikLigetissoko¨rperlichund die afrikanische Musik so komplex wahrgenommen hat’) (Zander, 2003). Here, Zander’shearingencountersalimittothewidelyheldviewthatAfricandancemusicis somehowmore‘embodied’thanWesternconcertmusic.Thesharedpresentationon this CD thereby effectively problematizes a widespread cultural dichotomy, which hinges on a questionable topos about the general character of African music. Even Gallati acknowledges shared features, notably the layered rhythmic complexities, betweenthesongsoftheAkaandthecompositionsofLigetiandReich.ThusGallati’s hearing,too,challengesthepopular,andequallycontested,notionthatAfricanmusic is somehow more ‘rhythmically complex’ than European music.3 For these writers, then, the ways of listening encouraged by the joint venture can challenge exoticizing habits of thought about African music. This line of argument—the recognition of African cultural sameness—can be amplified in the context of recent debates about how African music should be represented today. To begin with, the very title of the Berlin concert—Diesseits von Afrika—impliesnotonlythetruismthatanAfricanmusicconcertistotakeplaceon ‘this(theEuropean)side’oftheglobe,butalsothat‘anotherside’ofAfricanmusicis to be presented in a setting celebrating cultural equivalence.4 It is not surprising, then, that both Ligeti and Reich distance themselves from ‘exotic’ uses of African music,favoringinsteadthemusic’s‘structural’dimensions.Reichwrites,‘Myinterest was in the rhythmic structure of the music. I didn’t want to sound...African, I wanted to think...African’ (Reich, 2000, p. 148).5 In his essay ‘Some optimistic predictions(1970)aboutthefutureofmusic’,hegeneralizesthepoint:‘Non-Western musicingeneralandAfrican,Indonesian,andIndianmusicinparticularwillserveas new structural models for Western musicians. Not as new models of sound. (That’s the old exoticism trip.)’ (Reich, 2000, p. 51). Reich acknowledges that cultural appropriation can ‘seem like a kind of musical rape’, but argues that ‘structural’, ‘technical’ or ‘formal’ borrowing in the context of cross-cultural exchange is associatedwithideologicalneutrality:‘Thatinformation,itseemstome,travelsmore 232 M. Scherzinger easily through customs as it were. Because, in a sense, it’s completely neutral information’(Reich,2002,p.13).6InReich’sassessmentofLigeti,too,hearguesthat ‘Ligeti has proved to be the European composer who has best understood...non- Western music’; Ligeti’s familiarity with Central African music has been ‘‘‘well digested’’’ (Reich, 2000, p. 213). Ligeti himself rejects the categories ‘world’ music and ‘crossover’ music, which he considers symptomatic of crass commercialization (see Wilson, 2001). Like Reich, Ligeti instead prizes the formal complexity of themusicoveritsexoticsound.InaconversationwithDenysBouliane,forexample, Ligetiexpressesthehopethathispianoetudesarereceivedneitheras‘folklore’noras the ‘eclectic composite of different style elements’ (‘eklektizistische Zusammenset- zungvonverschiedenenStilelementen’),butratherasa‘structuralmodeofthinking’ (‘strukturelle Denkweise’) (Bouliane, 1989, p. 75 [emphasis added]; see also Floros, 1996, p. 69). To support this valuation of structure over sound, Ligeti’s essay for the Berlin concert, as well as his notes accompanying the African Rhythm CD, emphasize structural comparisons between African music and his own. For example, Ligeti contendsthatthecompositionalprocessoftheetudesbeganwithanawarenessofthe physicality ofplayingthepiano.Byexperiencinghisownabstractnotation as‘tactile form’ the composer would metamorphose the final shape of his compositions in unexpected new ways (Ligeti, 2001). Likewise, argues Ligeti, in sub-Saharan African music the physicality of playing an instrument confronts a musical idea, which morphs the resulting acoustic image. For Ligeti, this African mode of music-making was a crucial influence: Thepolyphonicperformanceofmanymusiciansatthexylophone—inUganda,in the Central African Republic, in Malawi and in other areas—as well as the solo performances on lamellaphones (mbira, likembe, or sanza) in Zimbabwe, in Cameroon, and in many other areas stimulated me to seek out similar technical possibilities on the piano keys (Das polyphone Zusammenspiel mehrerer Musiker am Xylophon—in Uganda, in der Zentralafrikanischen Republik, in Malawi und ananderenOrten—sowiedasSpieleineseinzigenAusfu¨hrendenamLamellophon (Mbira, Likembe oder Sanza) in Simbabwe, in Kamerun und in vielen anderen Gegenden haben mich veranlaßt, a¨hnliche technische Mo¨glichkeiten auf den Klaviertasten zu suchen). (Ligeti, 2001) InhisnotestotheCD,LigetiequallyemphasizesatechnicalaspectofAfricanmusic, which he attempted to employ in his piano etudes: ‘The formal simplicity of sub- Saharanmusicwithitsunchangingrepetitionofperiodsofequallength...isinsharp contrast to the inner structure of these periods which, because of the simultaneous superpositioningofdifferentrhythmicpatterns,possessesanextraordinarydegreeof complexity’ (Ligeti,2003a).Similarly, Reich’swritings on music,as withhisnotesin the booklet accompanying the CD, call attention to the technical and structural properties of both his own music and African music. BypresentingAkamusicalongsidetheworksoftwoWesterncomposers,then,and by highlighting the structural affinities between these distinct musical worlds, the Contemporary Music Review 233 Ligeti/Reich/Aka Pygmies project assists in deflating some of the perplexing binaries that separate the formal/aesthetically oriented music of Euro-America from the culture/contextuallyorientedmusicofAfrica.Alongtheway,thecomposersseemto discredit a host of subsidiary myths as well: that Western music is less physical and kinesthetically conceived (buttressed by an ideology extolling its abstract sounding forms) than African music; that Western music is inherently less rhythmic (buttressed by an ideology extolling its harmonic dimensions) than African music, and so on. At best, the Ligeti/Reich/Aka Pygmies project thus suggests that these dichotomies may have more to do with a certain brand of racialized commonplaces in the north Atlantic than they do with any empirical African reality. III The critical reception of the Ligeti/Reich/Aka Pygmies project is therefore contra- dictory, guided by opposed anxieties about the role of African culture in global modernity.Ontheonehand,wefindacontextualistrebuke,which,whilesensitiveto the appropriative dimensions of the project, hinges on the ideological projection of what Kofi Agawu would call epistemological difference between Africa and the West.Ontheother,wefindanappraisalofformalaffinitiesbetweenculturalproducts, which,whileattunedtothepoliticsofrepresentation,overlookshowtheextractionof African music (in service of its redemption as art) can function as an efficient ideological mechanism. Neither view can be faulted outright. Even the authors and organizers of the project, for whom the juxtapositions display ‘a fine interplay of influences...aboveall,acelebrationofrhythmandpulse’(Aimard,2003),reproduce various disarming cliche´s about African music and musicians that undo their professed egalitarian aspirations. The booklet accompanying the Berlin concert, for example, dabbles in several crude representations of the African continent. The booklet neither provides biographical information on the Aka musicians (who, as is the case with the CD, remain nameless) nor does it offer any anthropological or historical descriptions of the actual musical repertoire performed that evening. Instead,wefindalusciousdescriptionofAkamusic,atoncedelightinginexcessive admirationandrecoilinginhorrifiedalarm,intermsthatvividlydistinguishesitfrom itsWesterncounterpart.Theaccountisrepletewithexoticimagery—‘thistropicalwild growth of melodies’ (‘dieser tropische Wildwuchs der Melodien’)—and metaphors conjuring the primitivism of ancient times—‘this acoustic primal soup’ (‘dieser akustischen Ursuppe’) (Schomann, 2001). For Schomann, Aka music is timeless, archaic, innocent, auto-composed, communal, egalitarian, and fundamentally resistant to change. On hearing the songs of the Aka on site in Mongumba in the CentralAfricanRepublic,forexample,Schomannlovinglydescribesasoundthatarises from‘thedepthsoftime’(‘ausdenTiefenderZeit’),asifto‘openacanalbetweenthe childhood days of humanity and the present age of the third millennium’ (‘Als ha¨tte sicheinKanalgeo¨ffnetzwischendenKindertagenderMenschheitundderGegenwart des3.Jahrtausends’).Itisamusicthat‘knowsneithersoloistsnorhierarchies’(‘kennt 234 M. Scherzinger keineSolistenundkeineHierarchien’),amusicwhosepolyphonicinteractionsevade allunisons(‘einHorrorvordemUnisono’).‘Likefishinaswarm,’writesSchomann, ‘participants continually react to the movements of the others’ (‘Wie Fische im Schwarmreagierenallefortwa¨hrendaufdieBewegungenderanderen’).Byassociating Akasingingwiththeinstinctualbehaviorofaschooloffish,Schomannrecapitulatesa brand of well-worn German tropes about primitive Africa.7 Isolated from the rest of theworld,theAkaareimagined,asHegeldescribedAfrica,as‘lyingbeyondthedayof self-conscious history’, preserving their detachment in a land enveloped by the innocence of childhood (Hegel, 1956, p. 1). As to the status of Aka society in global modernity,Schomannisunapologeticallypessimistic.Whilehespeaksnostalgicallyof atimebeforethe‘dawnofindependence,whenthelandstillhadhopeandinnocence’ (‘inderMorgenro¨tederUnabha¨ngigkeit,alsdasLandnochHoffnungundUnschuld hatte’),Schomannlamentsthedespoticcorruptionofmodern-daycentralAfrica.Now therainforestoffersimageryforacripplingbureaucracyandsinkingpoliticalhope:itis a‘jungle’ofadministrativeauthorities(‘Beho¨rdendschungel’)festeringinthe‘swamps ofcorruption’(‘Su¨mpfederKorruption’).InthecontextofmodernAfricanpolitics, claimsSchomann,Akainnocenceisentirelylost;theyhavebecomethe‘negroesofthe negroes’(‘SiesinddieNegerderNeger’). Schomann’s description shuttles precariously between two understandings of Africa, the first an idealization, the second a demonization: speaking of the modern CentralAfricanRepublic,thetextassertsanauthoritarianandpaternalisticsystemof exclusionarypolitics,andalwayswithnoencroachmentofspecifichistoricalevidence of actual exclusions; yet while speaking of indigenous Aka musicians, already abstracted out of modernity, the text describes the poignancy of instinctual musical practices, filled with archaic spirits, in a tone of hyperbolic respect and admiration. Pre-independence Africa is rendered as a place where noble communities roamed freely and without restraint, while modern, independent Africa has descended into tyrannicalrule,rifewithethnictension.Thiskindofopposition,placingAfricaunder a double bind, uncritically affirms the mysterious past over the present. Thus the formerisapproachedwithadream-likedeference,whilemodernAfricaischallenged with gloomy Realpolitik. Mahmood Mamdani connects this mode of thinking to the ideological demands of global capitalism: Whatwehavebeforeusisadividedworld...inhabitedbysubjectsononesideand citizens on the other; their life is regulated by customary law on one side and modernlawontheother;theirbeliefsaredismissedaspaganonthissidebutbear the status of religion on the other; the stylized moments in their day-to-day lives areconsideredritualonthissideandcultureontheother;theircreativeactivityis considered crafts on this side and glorified as the arts on the other; their verbal communication is demeaned as vernacular chatter on this side but elevated as linguistic discourse on the other. (Mamdani, 1996, p. 61) Arguably, the Ligeti/Reich/Aka Pygmies project disconcerts some of these binaries. Yet, the effort to glorify Aka song as art falters in Schomann’s representation of it. Contemporary Music Review 235 Through exaggerated praise of Aka song, Schomann’s text unwittingly wishes Africa into the wistful archaic timelessness of pre-capitalism, thereby effectively depriving Africans of full participation in the global cultural economy. Furthermore, the communitarian view of the African landscape (apparently to be protected from the perils of this economy) is, in Mamdani’s view, laced with neo-colonial thinking: ‘More than anywhere else, there was in the African colonial experienceaone-sidedoppositionbetweentheindividualandthegroup,civilsociety and community’ (Mamdani, 1996, p. 22). Mamdani argues that pluralizing the landscape into distinctive communities, thus channeling a racial division into ethnic tensions,wasoneofthemostbrilliantandeffectivemodesofcolonialcontrol.Thisis because communal custom was state ordained and enforced through the institution ofNativeAuthorities(inchargeofmanagingthelocalstateapparatus)inmanyparts of Africa. That is, colonial authorities defined distinctive laws for ethnic groups (or tribes) with distinctive characteristics, referred to as custom, and, in effect, fractured the ranks of the ruled along an ethnic divide. In sync with the colonial investment in inventing and maintaining distinct tribal identities, Schomann harnesses a native voice to make his point: ‘You have your music, we have ours’ (‘Ihr habt eure Musik, wir die unsere’), he quotes an informant Malala as saying (Schomann, 2001). Not surprisingly, this exclusionary thinking extends to the financial aspects of the project as well. Here, Schomann’s preference for keeping the Aka excluded from capitalist exchange is unabashed. He scathingly describes the consequences of Aka participation in the global economy thus: We are also dealing here with a group of international stars, who have already toured inFrance, Switzerland andBrazil. Thereby,given their circumstances, they earn a fortune. But what remains of this? The money fades away between their fingers, and within a short time they are once again living from hand to mouth (WobeiwirbeidieserGruppezugleichmitinternationalenStarszutunhaben,die bereitsTourneeninFrankreich,inderSchweizundinBrasilienabsolvierten.Dabei verdienensiefu¨rihreVerha¨ltnisseeinVermo¨gen.Dochwasbleibtdavon?DasGeld zerrinnt ihnen unter den Fingern, und binnen kurzem leben sie wieder von der Hand in den Mund). (Schomann, 2001) Schomann goes on to describe the corrupting effects of money in the hands of the Aka—how the earnings from concert tours only led to excessive drinking and smoking, bad investments, shootings, marital dysfunction, robberies, and so on. Intriguing musical similarities notwithstanding, the official text accompanying the Diesseits von Afrika concert thus fails to envisage anything like a genuinely social, political or economic equivalence between these cultural worlds. Butthereareparadoxicaltensionsontheterrainoftheaestheticappraisalsaswell. Notmentionedbyanyofthecritics,forexample,isthestartlingfactthatneitherLigeti nor Reich use Aka music as a basis for those works presented on the CD. Further, Ligeti’smostAfrican-inspiredetudesdrawonmusicfromelsewhereinAfrica—most importantly the xylophone music of the Buganda people of Uganda and the horn musicoftheBanda-LindaoftheCentralAfricanRepublic,butalsomusicoftheGbaya 236 M. Scherzinger ofSouthSudan,theChokweofAngola,andeventheShonaofZimbabwe.Ofthesix etudes represented on the CD only two can be shown to explicitly involve Ligeti’s studiesinAfricancultures.Thefirst ofthese,etude no.8,Fe´m(Metal),composedin 1989, recalls the polyrhythmic processes and the percussive sonorities of southern African xylophone music, while the second, etude no. 12, Entrelacs (Interlacing), composed in 1993, recalls the patterning of the tusona ideographs composed in the regionofnorth-westernAngolaandeasternZambia.Conspicuousbyitsabsenceisthe first etude, De´sordre (Disorder), composed in 1985, which draws on the ennanga (harp) music of Uganda, and Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), composed in 1994, which draws on amadinda and akadinda (xylophone) music of Uganda as well as mbira music of Zimbabwe. Reich’smostAfrican-inspiredmusicdrawsonmusicfromGhana,Nigeria,Uganda, Zambia and the Central African Republic (where the horn ensembles of the Banda Linda, not the vocal music of the Aka, serve as a compositional model). Indeed, the twopiecesontheCD—ClappingMusic(forclappinghands),composedin1972,and Music forPiecesofWood(for fivepairs ofclaves,presented herebyAimardalone,by recordingeachrhythmiclayersuccessivelyandthensuperimposingthem),composed in1973—owetheiroriginstothegankoguibellpatternfromwestAfricandrumming ensembles,mostnotablytheAgbadzadancefromGhana.Iwillnowturntoananalytic assessmentofthepreciseworkingsofthe‘Africanized’worksofLigetirepresentedon the CD, tracing influences to their local African precedents, briefly comparing them, and examining both the tensions and the insights born of the aesthetic kinships suggestedbytheLigeti/Reich/AkaPygmiesproject.Thisanalysiscastsnewperspectives on the uneven ideological commitments articulated, at a general level, by the critical reception of the project. IV After completing his opera Le Grand Macabre (1977), Gyo¨rgy Ligeti suffered a creative hiatus of five years. Then his production moved in a sharply new direction. Ligetidescribesthissignificantturningpoint(‘einwesentlicherWendepunkt’)asone engendered by a crisis that was at once personal and generational (in Floros, 1996, p. 156). By the 1980s a generation of composers associated with Darmstadt and Cologneinthe1950sand1960swereatrisk,inLigeti’sview,ofbecomingarcaneand doctrinaire. Sensing the danger of academicism (‘die Gefahr des Akademismus’), Ligetisoughtacompositionalstylethatatonceresistedthecliche´softheavantgarde as well as the regressive quotation techniques associated with pastiche-based postmodernism (Floros, 1996, 161). It would be an exaggeration to say that the storyofLigeti’s latemusicisthestory ofemancipation fromthedichotomybetween modernism and postmodernism by way of multiculturalism. Nevertheless, multi- cultural musical influences, notably African, are the keynote of that music, however variousinmoodandtemperthemusicis.8ItisthecomponentofAfricanpolyphony in his piano etudes (shifting downbeats, asymmetric melodies, inherent rhythmic