GYORGY LIGETI

Born: May 28, 1923, Tirnsemi, Hungary

In his own words...

"I am using only an idea from African notions of movement, not the music itself. In Africa, cycles or periods of constantly equal length are supported by a regular beat (which is usually danced, not played). The individual beat can be divided into two, three sometimes even four or five "elementary units" or fast pulses. I employ neither the cyclic form nor the beats, but use rather the elementary pulse as an underlying gridwork. I use this principle in Désordre for accent shifting, which allows illusory pattern deformations to emerge; the pianist plays a steady rhythm, but the irregular distribution of accents leads to seemingly chaotic configurations. Another fundamental characteristic of African music was significant to me; the simmultaneity of symmetry and asymmetry. The cycles are always structured asymmetrically (e.g.,twelve pulses in 7+5), although the beat, as conceived by the musician, proceeds in even pulses."

Hungarian composer. Ligeti is best known for the use of thick clusters of sound in his music, especially his orchestral works.

György Ligeti studied at the Budapest Academy, where he began teaching in 1950. His early music followed in the style of Bartók and Kodály, often making use of folk songs. In 1956, as a result of the unrest that would lead to the Soviet invasion of Hungary, Ligeti fled to Vienna, and eventually settled in Hamburg. He worked in the electronic music studio at Cologne, and taught at the Darmstadt summer institute. He was a central figure in the European avant-garde, and began to develop his own individual approach to composition.

Ligeti's most famous composition is his Atmosphères (1961). In this work he combines instruments into clusters of rapidly moving parts (a texture he calls "micropolyphony"), which are perceived as masses of sound. These clusters slowly change, causing a gradual transformation of sound. The piece established an international reputation for him, and it brought him to the attention of the general population when Stanley Kubrick used it in his film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

In recent years, Ligeti has explored more tonal materials in his works, and in some pieces (for example, the Horn Trio of 1982) returned to his earlier, Bartók-influenced style.

Musical Examples:

Lux Aeterna
Presto ruvido from Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet

Works:

• Orchestral works, including Apparitions (1958–59), Atmosphères (1961), Lontano (1967), Piano Concerto (1985–88), and Violin Concerto (1990)
  
• Chamber works, including Chamber Concerto (1970) and Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano (1982)
  
• Theater works, including Aventures (1962), Nouvelles aventures (1962–65), and Le grand macabre (1976)
  
• Choral works, including Lux aeterna (Eternal Light, 1966) and Magyar Etüdök (Hungarian Studies, 1983)
  
• Keyboard music, including Etudes for Piano (Book I, 1985; Book II, 1989–90)