Steve Schwartz wrote:

>>1.  We don't know what the composer's will is, only what he wrote - quite
>>another thing.

David Runnion replies:

>How? What is the composer's will other than what he wrote??? This makes no
>sense at all.

 From the liner notes of Ligeti's revised "Le Grande Macabre," I have
posted a passage from the composer's comments that, to me, perfectly
illustrates the difference between "will," and what was actually written.
(Sony 62312)

Ligeti is explaining why he chose trombones to play a passage in a
dangerously unreliable range, (in the earlier version), instead of choosing
the altogether more appropriate, reliable, (and seemingly available),
contrabassoon:

   "Of course, everything in the first version was playable; the only
   question was how much rehearsal time would be available.  In the
   'bumpy opera business,' there are always much fewer rehearsals than
   necessary, and, for instance, the trombonists, (in the first version),
   sometimes played the second harmonic instead of the deep pedal tone.
   I therefore changed the instrumentation for these 'black depths' to
   the double basses and contrabassoon.  Twenty years ago, contrabassoons
   were not available everywhere; today, however, you can rely on there
   being instruments that have been technically perfected.  Even the
   range of the low Bb Bass Clarinet has been extended downwards; I have
   now made use of all of this.  Many things have thus become better
   playable, too--there are no 'utopian' passages anymore."

Had Ligeti died before the 1997 revision, and a conductor wanted to make
such a change, it would be easy for us to say that, had Ligeti *wanted* to
use a contrabassoon, he would have--as they were certainly *existed* in the
'70's.  Who would know that Ligeti compromised because he was afraid of the
lack of (blanket) availability of his first choice, the contrabassoon?

The minute "will" hits the open air, it becomes compromise.

John Smyth