GYORGY LIGETI (1923-2006) by
Julie Williams
An avant-garde composer
popularised variously by the film maker
Stanley Kubrick and the pianist - and
personal friend - Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
He is associated not only with the more
impenetrable reaches of 20th-century
modernism but also with music for futuristic
films - Space Odyssey 2001 and
Eyes Wide Shut. At the same his
music looks backwards at Eastern European
musical traditions, particularly of
fiddle playing, albeit through a distorting
lens.
Ligeti was born in
Transylvania, which at that time was
territory disputed between Hungary and
Rumania. His family suffered internment
as Jews and both his father and his
brother died in Auschwitz. It is interesting
to compare his music with that of other
composers profoundly affected by wartime
experiences under the Nazis, such as
Nono, Xenakis and Stockhausen all of
whom produced music which rigorously
challenges the accepted frontiers of
the art form and is not always easy
to listen to. Some of Ligeti’s early
work can be described as ‘an intense
irrationality that serves as a metaphor
for a degradation from which there is
no return, no respite’ (Musical
Times, obituary).
After the war he lived
in Budapest and in 1956 moved to Cologne,
where Stockhausen was a big influence.
However his hero and the greatest influence
of all was Bartók. He wished,
but did not succeed, in emulating the
latter’s emigration to the USA, corresponding
with him to try to achieve this. He
managed to make a temporary visit, serving
as Composer-in-Residence and Guest Lecturer
at Stanford University in 1972. There
he met Steve Reich and this influenced
his music significantly, with its focus
on pulse and rhythm and its sourcing
of influence from non-European cultures.
This can be heard, for example, in the
creation of ‘Clocks and Clouds’.
‘What I wrote is
perhaps "maximal" minimal
music because of my predilection for
greater complexity, but my heart was
obviously turned to America’ .
During the 1970s his
major musical preoccupation was the
composition of operas, of which one
survives – ‘Le Grand Macabre’.
This has been prone to adverse comparison
with his friend’s better-known ‘Bluebeard’s
Castle’.
His later work, in particular the Etudes,
feature ‘micropolyphony’ which has similarities
to rhythms found in traditional African
music. This is displayed and demonstrated
in the Teldec Classics disc ‘African
Rhythms’ (86584-2), in which a selection
of his Etudes, played by Pierre-Laurent
Aimard, are intercut with Pygmy chants.
Throughout my life, I always found
dogmas uninteresting. Pioneering undiscovered
areas is what I consider my main challenge.
Complex forms and structures built from
extremely simple processes is the lesson
we can draw from studying the structure
of living organisms and of human and
animal societies.
Julie Williams
MAJOR WORKS
Atmospheres (1961)
Apparitions
Lontano
Clocks and Clouds (1973)
Chamber Concerto (1969–70)
Le Grand Macabre (1974–77)
Horn Trio (1982)
Violin Concerto (1985)
Piano Concerto (1992)
Piano Etudes (Book 1, 1985, Book 2,
1993)
Musica Ricerata (for piano, 1992 -
sampled in 'Eyes Wide Shut')
Lux Aeterna
Requiem
Horn Concerto (1998-99)
Ligeti
on MusicWeb
