Continuum forharpsichord is amusical composition byGyörgy Ligeti composed in 1968, and dedicated to the contemporary harpsichordist,Antoinette Vischer. The composer describes the conception and result of its technique:

I thought to myself, what about composing a piece that would be a paradoxically continuous sound, something likeAtmosphères, but that would have to consist of innumerable thin slices of salami? A harpsichord has an easy touch; it can be played very fast, almost fast enough to reach the level ofcontinuum, but not quite (it takes about eighteen separate sounds per second to reach the threshold where you can no longer make out individualnotes and the limit set by the mechanism of the harpsichord is about fifteen to sixteen notes a second). As thestring is plucked by theplectrum, apart from the tone you also hear quite a loudnoise. The entire process is a series ofsound impulses in rapid succession which create the impression of continuoussound.

Amy Bauer (2004, p. 130) describes the piece astrompe-l'œil, creating "a sense ofstasis through extremely rapid activity." She compares it to a patient's description of theschizophrenic experience of, "an intensecerebral activity in which inner experiences took place at greatly increased speed, so that much more than usual happened per minute of external time. The result was to give an effect ofslow motion." (Sass 1992)

This piece has also been arranged forbarrel organ and for twoplayer pianos by the composer.

The piece has also been compared by classical music reviewers to the magnetic fluctuations of comet67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko as detected by the space probePhilae after the fluctuations were artistically sonificated by a German composer and sound designer to make them audible.^[1][2]

Ligeti also wrote two subsequent works for solo harpsichord:Passacaglia ungherese (1978) andHungarian Rock (Chaconne) (1978).

• Bauer, Amy (2004). "'Tone-Color, Movement, Changing Harmonic Planes': Cognition, Constraints and Conceptual Blends",The Pleasure of Modernist Music. University of Rochester Press.ISBN 1-58046-143-3.
• Ligeti in Conversation. Cited in Bauer.
• Sass (1992).Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought. New York: Basic Books. Cited in Bauer.
• Amazon.com (2007)Amazon.com: Ligeti: Mechanical Music: Music: Gyorgy Ligeti, Pierre Charial, Jürgen Hocker, Françoise Terrioux (accessed April 14, 2007)
• Ligeti, György, Péter Várnai, Josef Häusler, andClaude Samuel. György Ligeti in Conversation with Péter Várnai, Josef Häusler, Claude Samuel, and Himself. London: Eulenburg, 1983.
• "Jede zeitliche Folge von Tönen, Klängen, musikalischen Gestalten" hat Rhythmus. Über die Rhythmik in Ligetis Cembalostück Continuum vonPeter Petersen, 2008, PDF on: www.saitenspiel.org

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