György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti (/ˈlɪɡəti/; Hungarian: Ligeti György Sándor,

pronounced [ˈliɡɛti ˈɟørɟ ˈʃaːndor]; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-
Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one
of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth
century" and "one of the most innovative and influential among progressive figures
of his time".[1]

Born in Transylvania, Romania, he lived in Hungary before emigrating to Austria in

1956, and became an Austrian citizen in 1968. In 1973 he became professor of
composition at the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater until he retired in
1989. He died in Vienna in 2006.

Restricted by the authorities of Communist Hungary, only when he reached the west
in 1956 could he fully realise his passion for avant-garde music and develop new
compositional techniques. After experimenting with electronic music in Cologne, his
breakthrough came with orchestral works such as Atmosphères, for which he used a
technique he later dubbed micropolyphony. After writing his "anti-anti-opera" Le
Grand Macabre, Ligeti shifted away fromchromaticism and towards polyrhythm for György Ligeti, 1984
his later works.

He is best known by the public for the use of his music in film soundtracks. Although he did not directly compose any film scores,
excerpts of pieces composed by him were taken and adapted for film use. Most famously this occurred in the films of Stanley
Kubrick, particularly with the music from2001: A Space Odyssey, which also contained pieces from other classical composers.

Contents
Biography
Early life
After leaving Hungary
Death
Music
Compositions in Hungary
From 1956 to Le Grand Macabre
After Le Grand Macabre
Legacy
Music in the films of Stanley Kubrick
Music in other films and media
Awards
Notable students
Writings
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
Biography

Early life
Ligeti was born in 1923 at Dicsőszentmárton (which was renamed Târnăveni in 1941), in the Romanian region of Transylvania to Dr.
Sándor Ligeti and Dr. Ilona Somogyi. His family was Hungarian Jewish. He was the grandnephew of the violinist Leopold Auer and
cousin of Hungarian philosopherÁgnes Heller.

Ligeti recalled that his first exposure to languages other than Hungarian came one day while listening to a conversation among the
Romanian-speaking town police. Before that he had not known that other languages existed.[2] He moved to Cluj with his family
when he was six years old. He was not to return to the town of his birth until the 1990s. In 1940, Northern Transylvania was annexed
by Hungary following theSecond Vienna Award and Cluj became part of Hungary.

In 1941 Ligeti received his initial musical training at the conservatory in Cluj,[3] and during the summers privately with Pál Kadosa
in Budapest. In 1944, Ligeti's education was interrupted when he was sent to a forced labor brigade by the Horthy regime.[4] His
brother, age 16, was deported to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp and both of his parents were sent to Auschwitz. His
.[5]
mother was the only other survivor of his immediate family

Following World War II, Ligeti returned to his studies in Budapest, Hungary, graduating in 1949 from the Franz Liszt Academy of
Music. He studied under Pál Kadosa, Ferenc Farkas, Zoltán Kodály and Sándor Veress. He went on to do ethnomusicological
research into the Hungarian folk music of Transylvania. However, after a year he returned to Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, this
time as a teacher of harmony, counterpoint and musical analysis, a position he secured with the help of Kodály and held between
1950 and 1956.[3] As a young teacher, Ligeti took the unusual step of regularly attending the lectures of an older colleague, the
conductor and musicologist Lajos Bárdos, a conservative Christian whose circle represented for Ligeti a safe haven, and whose help
and advice he later acknowledged in the prefaces to his own two harmony textbooks (1954 and 1956).[6] However, communications
between Hungary and the West by then had become difficult due to the restrictions of the communist government, and Ligeti and
other artists were effectively cut off from recent developments outside theEastern Bloc.

After leaving Hungary

In December 1956, two months after the Hungarian revolution was violently suppressed by the Soviet Army, Ligeti fled to Vienna
with his ex-wife Vera Spitz (whom he was soon to remarry in 1957 and gave birth to a son).[7][8] He would not see Hungary again
until he was invited to judge a competition in Budapest fourteen years later.[9] On his journey to Vienna, he left most of his
Hungarian compositions in Budapest, some of which are now lost; he only took with him what he considered to be his most
important pieces. He later explained, "I considered my old music of no interest. I believed in twelve-tone music!"[10] He eventually
took Austrian citizenship in 1968.[7]

A few weeks after arriving in Vienna he left for Cologne. There he met several key avant-garde figures and learned more
contemporary musical styles and methods.[11] These people included the composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gottfried Michael
Koenig, both then working on groundbreaking electronic music. During the summer, he attended the Internationale Ferienkurse für
Neue Musik in Darmstadt. Ligeti worked in the Cologne Electronic Music Studio with Stockhausen and Koenig and was inspired by
the sounds he heard there. However, he produced little electronic music of his own, instead concentrating on instrumental works
which often contain electronic-soundingtextures.

After about three years' working with them he finally fell out with the Cologne School, this being too dogmatic and involving much
factional in-fighting: "there were [sic] a lot of political fighting because different people, like Stockhausen, like Kagel wanted to be
first. And I, personally, have no ambition to be first or to be important."[2]

Between 1961 and 1971 he was guest professor for composition in Stockholm. In 1972 he became composer-in-residence at Stanford
University.[3]
 In 1973 Ligeti became professor of composition at the Hamburg
Hochschule für Musik und Theater, eventually retiring in 1989.
While living in Hamburg, his wife Vera remained in Vienna with
their son, Lukas, who later became a composer.[12]

Invited by Walter Fink, he was the first composer featured in the

annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in
1990.[13]

Apart from his far-reaching interest in different styles of music, from

Karlheinz Stockhausenlecturing at the
Internationale Ferienkurse für neue Musikin
Darmstadt, July 1957
Renaissance to African music, Ligeti was also interested in literature
(including the writers Lewis Carroll, Jorge Luis Borges, and Franz
Kafka), painting, architecture, science, and mathematics, especially
the fractal geometry of Benoit Mandelbrot and the writings of
Douglas Hofstadter.[14]

Death
Ligeti's health deteriorated after the turn of the millennium and he died in Vienna on
12 June 2006 at the age of 83.[12] Although it was known that he had been ill for
several years and had used a wheelchair for the last three years of his life, his family
declined to release details of his cause of death.[15]

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel and Art Secretary Franz Morak both paid
tribute to Ligeti. His funeral was held at the Vienna Crematorium at the Vienna
Central Cemetery, with the Republic of Austria and the Republic of Hungary
represented by their respective cultural affairs ministers. The ashes were finally buried Ligeti's grave in Vienna Central
Cemetery, Vienna
at the cemetery in a grave dedicated to him by the City of ienna.[16]
V

He was survived by his wife Vera and son Lukas,[12] who is a composer and
percussionist based in the United States.

Music

Compositions in Hungary
Many of Ligeti's very earliest works were written for chorus and included settings of folk songs. His largest work in this period was a
graduation composition for the Budapest Academy, entitled Cantata for Youth Festival, for four vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra.
One of his earliest pieces now in the repertoire is his Cello Sonata, a work in two contrasting movements that were written in 1948
and 1953 respectively. It was initially banned by the Soviet-run Composer's Union and had to wait a quarter of a century before its
first public performance.[17]

Ligeti's earliest works are often an extension of the musical language of Béla Bartók. Even his piano cycle Musica ricercata (1953),
though written according to Ligeti with a "Cartesian" approach in which he "regarded all the music I knew and loved as being...
irrelevant",[18] has been described by one biographer as inhabiting a world very close to Bartók's set of piano works,
Mikrokosmos.[19] Ligeti's set comprises eleven pieces in all. The work is based on a simple restriction: the first piece uses exclusively
one pitch A, heard in multiple octaves, and only at the very end of the piece is a second note, D, heard. The second piece then uses
three notes (E♯, F♯, and G), the third piece uses four, and so on, so that in the final piece all twelve notes of the chromatic scale are
present.
Shortly after its composition, Ligeti arranged six of the movements of Musica ricercata for wind quintet under the title 'Six
Bagatelles for Wind Quintet'. The Bagatelles were performed first in 1956, but not in their entirety: the last movement was censored
by the Soviets for being too 'dangerous'.[20]

Because of Soviet censorship, his most daring works from this period, including Musica ricercata and his String Quartet No. 1
Métamorphoses nocturnes (1953–1954), were written for the 'bottom drawer'. Composed of a single movement divided into
seventeen contrasting sections linked motivically,[21] the First String Quartet is Ligeti's first work to suggest a personal style of
V [22]
composition. The string quartet was not performed until 1958, after he had fled Hungary forienna.

From 1956 to Le Grand Macabre

Upon arriving in Cologne, Ligeti began to write electronic music
alongside Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gottfried Michael Koenig at
the electronic studio of West German Radio (WDR). He completed
only two works in this medium, however—the pieces Glissandi
(1957) and Artikulation (1958)—before returning to instrumental
music. A third work, originally entitled Atmosphères but later known
as Pièce électronique Nr. 3, was planned, but the technical limitations
of the time prevented Ligeti from realizing it completely. It was
György Ligeti in 1984 finally realised in 1996 by the Dutch composers Kees Tazelaar and
Johan van Kreij of theInstitute of Sonology.[23]

Ligeti's music appears to have been subsequently influenced by his electronic experiments, and many of the sounds he created
resembled electronic textures. Ligeti coined the term "micropolyphony" to describe the texture of the second movement of
Apparitions (1958–59) and Atmosphères (1961). This texture is a similar to that of polyphony, except that the polyphony is obscured
in a dense and rich stack of pitches.[24] Micropolyphony can be used to create the nearly static but slowly evolving works such as
Atmosphères in which the individual instruments become hidden in a complex web of sound. According to Ligeti, after Apparitions
and Atmosphères, he "became famous".[25]

With Volumina (1961–62, revised 1966) for solo organ, Ligeti continued with clusters of notes, translated into blocks of sound. In this
piece, Ligeti abandoned conventional music notation, instead using diagrams to represent general pitch areas, duration, and flurries of
notes.[26]

Aventures (1962), like its companion pieceNouvelles Aventures (1962–65), is a composition for three singers and instrumental septet,
to a text (of Ligeti's own devising) that is without semantic meaning. In these pieces, each singer has five roles to play, exploring five
areas of emotion, and they switch from one to the other so quickly and abruptly that all five areas are present throughout the
piece.[27]

Requiem (1963–65) is a work for soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists, twenty-part chorus (four each of soprano, mezzo-soprano,
alto, tenor, and bass), and orchestra. Though, at about half an hour, it is the longest piece he had composed up to that point,[28] Ligeti
sets only about half of the Requiem's traditional text: the "Introitus", the "Kyrie" (a completely chromatic quasi-fugue, where the
parts are a montage of melismatic, skipping micropolyphony), and the "Dies irae"—dividing the latter sequence into two parts, "De
die judicii" and "Lacrimosa".

Lux Aeterna (1966) is a 16-voice a cappella piece whose text is also associated with the Latin Requiem.

Ligeti's Cello Concerto (1966), which is dedicated to Siegfried Palm, is composed of two movements: the first begins with an almost
imperceptible cello which slowly shifts into static tone clusters with the orchestra before reaching a crescendo and slowly decaying,
[29]
while the second is a virtuoso piece of dynamic atonal melody on the part of the cello.

Lontano (1967), for full orchestra, is another example of micropolyphony, but the overall effect is closer to harmony, with complex
fect. It has become a standard repertoire piece.[30]
woven textures and opacity of the sound giving rise to a harmonious ef
String Quartet No. 2 (1968) consists of five movements. They differ widely from each other in their types of motion. In the first, the
structure is largely broken up, as in Aventures. In the second, everything is reduced to very slow motion, and the music seems to be
coming from a distance, with great lyricism. The pizzicato third movement is a machine-like studies, hard and mechanical, whereby
the parts playing repeated notes create a "granulated" continuum. In the fourth, which is fast and threatening, everything that
happened before is crammed together. Lastly, in strong contrast, the fifth movement spreads itself out. In each movement, the same
basic configurations return, but each time their colouring or viewpoint is different, so that the overall form only really emerges when
one listens to all five movements in context.[31]

Ramifications (1968–69), completed a year before the Chamber Concerto, is scored for an ensemble of strings in twelve parts—seven
violins, two violas, two cellos and a double bass—each of which may be taken by one player or several. The twelve are divided into
two numerically equal groups but with the instruments in the first group tuned approximately a quarter-tone higher (four violins, a
viola and a cello). As the group play, the one tuned higher inevitably tends to slide down toward the other, and both get nearer each
other in pitch.[31]

In the Chamber Concerto (1969–70), several layers, processes and kinds of movement can take place on different planes
simultaneously. In spite of frequent markings of "senza tempo", the instrumentalists are not given linear freedom; Ligeti insists on
keeping his texture under strict control at any given moment. The form is like a "precision mechanism". Ligeti was always fascinated
by machines that do not work properly and by the world of technology and automation. The use of periodic mechanical noises,
suggesting not-quite-reliable machinery, occurs in many of his works. The scoring is for flute (doubling piccolo), oboe (doubling
oboe d'amore and cor anglais), clarinet, bass clarinet (doubling second clarinet), horn, trombone, harpsichord (doubling Hammond
organ), piano (doubling celesta), and solo string quintet.[32]

Most of these compositions establish timbre, rather than the traditionally-favored dimensions of pitch and rhythm, as their principal
formal parameter, a practice that has come to be known assonorism.[33]

From the 1970s, Ligeti turned away from sonorism and began to concentrate on rhythm. Pieces such as
Continuum (1968) and Clocks
and Clouds (1972–73) were written before he heard the music of Steve Reich and Terry Riley in 1972. But the second of his Three
Pieces for Two Pianos (1976), entitled "Self-portrait with Reich and Riley (and Chopin in the background)", commemorates this
affirmation and influence. During the 1970s, he also became interested in the polyphonic pipe music of the Banda-Linda tribe from
[34]
the Central African Republic, which he heard through the recordings of one of his students.

In 1977, Ligeti completed his only opera, Le Grand Macabre,

thirteen years after its initial commission. Loosely based on Michel
de Ghelderode's 1934 play, La balade du grand macabre, it is a work
of Absurd theatre—Ligeti called it an "anti-anti-opera"—in which
Death (Nekrotzar) arrives in the fictional city of Breughelland and
announces that the end of the world will occur at midnight.
Musically, Le Grand Macabre draws on techniques not associated
with Ligeti's previous work, including quotations and pseudo-
quotations of other works[35] and the use of consonant thirds and
sixths.
Scene from Le Grand Macabre from a production
After Le Grand Macabre, Ligeti would abandon the use of at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2009
pastiche,[36] but would increasingly incorporate consonant harmonies
(even major and minor triads) into his work, albeit not in a diatonic
context.

After Le Grand Macabre

After Le Grand Macabre, Ligeti struggled for some time to find a new style. Besides two short pieces for harpsichord, he did not
complete another major work until the Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano in 1982, over four years after the opera. His music of the
1980s and 1990s continued to emphasise complex mechanical rhythms, often in a less densely chromatic idiom, tending to favour
displaced major and minor triads and polymodal structures. During this
time, Ligeti also began to explore alternate tuning systems through the
use of natural harmonics for horns (as in the Horn Trio and Piano
Concerto) and scordatura for strings (as in the Violin Concerto).
Additionally, most of his works in this period are multi-movement
works, rather than the extended single movements of Atmosphères and
San Francisco Polyphony.

From 1985 to 2001, Ligeti completed three books of Études for piano
(Book I, 1985; Book II, 1988–94; Book III, 1995–2001). Comprising
eighteen compositions in all, the Études draw from a diverse range of From left to right: György Ligeti,Lukas Ligeti,
sources, including gamelan,[37][38][39] African polyrhythms, Béla Vera Ligeti, Conlon Nancarrow, and Michael
Bartók, Conlon Nancarrow, Thelonious Monk,[39][40] and Bill Evans. Daugherty at the ISCM World Music Days in
Book I was written as preparation for the Piano Concerto, which contains Graz, Austria, 1982
a number of similar motivic and melodic elements. Ligeti’s music from
the last two decades of his life is unmistakable for its rhythmic
complexity. Writing about his first book of Piano Études, the composer claims this rhythmic complexity stems from two vastly
different sources of inspiration: the Romantic-era piano music of Chopin and Schumann and the indigenous music of sub-Saharan
Africa.[41]

The difference between the earlier and later pieces lies in a new conception of pulse. In the earlier works, the pulse is something to be
divided into two, three and so on. The effect of these different subdivisions, especially when they occur simultaneously, is to blur the
fect of Ligeti’s music.[42]
aural landscape, creating the micropolyphonic ef

On the other hand, the later music—and a few earlier pieces such as Continuum—treats the pulse as a musical atom, a common
denominator, a basic unit, which cannot be divided further. Different rhythms appear through multiplications of the basic pulse, rather
than divisions: this is the principle of African music seized on by Ligeti. It also appears in the music of Philip Glass, Steve Reich and
others; and significantly it shares much in common with the additive rhythms of Balkan folk music, the music of Ligeti’s youth.[43]
He described the music of Conlon Nancarrow, with its extremely complex explorations of polyrhythmic complexity, as "the greatest
discovery since Webern and Ives... something great and important for all music history! His music is so utterly original, enjoyable,
."[44]
perfectly constructed, but at the same time emotional... for me it's the best music of any composer living today

In 1988, Ligeti completed his Piano Concerto, writing that "I present my artistic credo in the Piano Concerto: I demonstrate my
independence from criteria of the traditional avantgarde, as well as the fashionable postmodernism."[45] Initial sketches of the
Concerto began in 1980, but it was not until 1985 that he found a way forward and the work proceeded more quickly.[46] The
Concerto explores many of the ideas worked out in the Études but in an orchestral context.

In 1993, Ligeti completed his Violin Concerto after four years of work. Like the Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto uses the wide
range of techniques he had developed up until that point as well as the new ideas he was working out at the moment. Among other
techniques, it uses a passacaglia,[47] "microtonality, rapidly changing textures, comic juxtapositions... Hungarian folk melodies,
Bulgarian dance rhythms, references to Medieval and Renaissance music and solo violin writing that ranges from the slow-paced and
sweet-toned to the angular and fiery."[48]

Other notable works from this period are the Viola Sonata (1994) and the Nonsense Madrigals (1988–93), a set of six a cappella
compositions that set English texts from William Brighty Rands, Lewis Carroll, and Heinrich Hoffman. The third Madrigal is a
setting of the English alphabet.

Ligeti's last works were the Hamburg Concerto for solo horn, four natural horns and chamber orchestra (1998–99, revised 2003,
dedicated to Marie Luise Neunecker), the song cycle Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel ("With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles", 2000), and the
eighteenth piano étude "Canon" (2001). Additionally, after Le Grand Macabre, Ligeti planned to write a second opera, first to be
based on Shakespeare's The Tempest and later on Carroll'sAlice's Adventures in Wonderland, but neither came to fruition.
 A performance of Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvelby
the Akros Percussion Collective with Nina Eidsheim,
soprano. In this section of the piece, the percussionists
play chromatic harmonicas.

Legacy
Ligeti has been described as "together with Boulez, Berio, Stockhausen, and Cage as one of the most innovative and influential
among progressive figures of his time".[49] From about 1960, Ligeti's work became better known and respected. His best-known
work was written during the period from Apparitions to Lontano, which includes Atmosphères, Volumina, Aventures and Nouvelles
Aventures, Requiem, Lux Aeterna, and his Cello Concerto; as well as his opera Le Grand Macabre. In recent years, his three books of
piano études have also become well known and are the subject of theInside the Score project of pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard,[50]

Music in the films of Stanley Kubrick

Ligeti's music is best known to the general public for its use in three films of Stanley Kubrick's, which gained him a world-wide
audience.[12] The soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey includes excerpts from four of his pieces: Atmosphères, Lux Aeterna,
Requiem and Aventures.[51] Atmosphères is heard during the "Star Gate" sequence, with portions also heard in the Overture and
Intermission. Lux Aeterna is heard in the moon-bus scene en route to the Tycho monolith. The Kyrie sequence of his Requiem is
heard over the first three monolith encounters. An electronically altered version of Aventures, unlisted in the film credits, is heard in
the cryptic final scenes. The music was used, and in some cases modified, without Ligeti's knowledge, and without full copyright
clearance; when the film came to Ligeti's attention, he "successfully sued for having had his music distorted",[52] but settled out of
[53]
court. Kubrick in return sought permission and compensated Ligeti for use of his music in later films.

Lux Aeterna was used again in Peter Hyams's 1984 sequel to 2001,2010.[54]

A later Kubrick film, The Shining, uses small portions ofLontano for orchestra.[55]

One motif from the second movement of Ligeti's Musica ricercata is used at pivotal moments in Eyes Wide Shut.[56] At the German
[57]
premiere of that film, by which time Kubrick had died, his widow was escorted by Ligeti himself.

Music in other films and media

Ligeti is also known to the public through the use of his music in other films by other directors. Lontano was also used in Martin
Scorsese's 2010 psychological thriller film Shutter Island.[58] The first movement of the Cello Concerto was used in the Michael
Mann 1995 crime film Heat.[54] The Requiem was used in the 2014 film Godzilla.[59] The Cello Concerto and the Piano Concerto
were used in Yorgos Lanthimos' 2017 film The Killing of a Sacred Deer.[60][61]
His music has also been used in television and radio. Lontano, Atmosphères, and the first movement of the Cello Concerto were used
in Sophie Fiennes's documentary Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, about the German post-war artist Anselm Kiefer.[62] Lontano,
Melodien, and Volumina were used in Fit the First, Fit the Fifth, and Fit the Sixth of the radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
[63]
Galaxy as background music to sections of narrative from the Guide.

Awards
Beethoven Prize of Bonn for Requiem (1967)
UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers(1969)
Berlin Art Prize (1972)
Bach Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1975)
Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts(1975)[64]
[65]
University of LouisvilleGrawemeyer Award for Music Composition (Etudes for Piano) (1986)
Austrian Decoration for Science and Art(1987)
Honorary Ring of the Vienna (1987)
Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres(1988)[66]
Prix de composition musicale de laFondation Prince Pierre de Monaco(1988)[66]
Léonie Sonning Music Prize(Denmark, 1990)
Grand Austrian State Prize for Music(1990)
Praemium Imperiale (1991)
Balzan Prize (1991)
Honorary Member of theRoyal Academy of Music, London (1992)[67]
Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, Germany (1993)
Rolf Schock Prize for Musical Arts (1995)
Music Award of the UNESCO (1996)
Wolf Prize in Arts, Israel (1996)
Wihuri Sibelius Prize, Finland (2000)
Kyoto Prize (2001)
Medal of Arts and Sciences of the City of Hamburg (2003)
Theodor W. Adorno Award (2003)
Kossuth Prize, Hungary (2003)
Polar Music Prize (2004)
Frankfurt Music Prize (2005)

Notable students

Writings
Ligeti, György. 1957. "Zur III. Klaviersonate von Boulez" Die Reihe 5: "Berichte—Analyse": 38–40. English as"Some
Remarks on Boulez' 3rd Piano Sonata", translated by Leo Black.Die Reihe [English edition] 5: "Reports—Analyses"
(1961): 56–58.
Ligeti, György. 1958. "Pierre Boulez. Entscheidung und Automatik in derStructure 1a ". Die Reihe 4: "Junge
Komponisten": 38–63. English as "Pierre Boulez: Decision and Automaticism in Structure 1a", translated by Leo
Black. Die Reihe [English edition] 4: "Young Composers" (1960): 36–62.
Ligeti, György. 1960. "Wandlungen der musikalischen Form" Band 7: "Form—Raum": 5–17. English as
"Metamorphoses of Musical Form", translated by Cornelius Cardew . Die Reihe [English edition] 7 "Form—Space"
(1964): 5–19.
Ligeti, György. 1960. "Zustände, Ereignisse,Wandlungen: Bemerkungen zu meinem OrchesterstückApparitions".
Bilder und Blätter 11. Reprinted as "Zustände, Ereignisse, W andlungen". Melos 34 (1967): 165–69. English as
"States, Events, Transformations", translatedby Jonathan W. Bernard. Perspectives of New Music31, no. 1 (Winter
1993): 164–71.
Ligeti, György. 1978. "On Music and Politics", translated by Wes Blomster. Perspectives of New Music16, no. 2
(Spring–Summer): 19–24. Originally published in German, in theDarmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik13 (1973):
42–46.
 Ligeti, György. 1987. "A Viennese Exponent of Understatement: Personal Reflections on Friedrich Cerha", translated
by Inge Goodwin. Tempo, New Series, no. 161/162: "...An Austrian Quodlibet..." (June–September): 3–5.
Ligeti, György. 1988. "On My Piano Concerto", translated by Robert Cogan.Sonus: A Journal of Investigations into
Global Musical Possibilities9, no. 1 (Fall): 8–13.
Ligeti, György, and Peter Sellars. "Le Grand Macabre: An Opera in Two Acts (Four Scenes) 1974-1977". Grand
Street, no. 59: "Time" (Winter): 206–14.
Ligeti, György. 2001. Neuf essais sur la musique, translated by Catherine Fourcassié. Geneva: Contrechamps.

References
1. Cummings n.d. 22. Steinitz 2003, 75.
2. Tusa 2001. 23. Iverson 2009, 92.
3. "Biography" (http://www.gyorgy-ligeti.com/home.php?p 24. Jones n.d.
age=biography,7,1,00,141,00,00,1,47). Retrieved 25. Istvan Szigeti (July 29, 1983)."A Budapest Interview
21 November 2015. with Gyorgy Ligeti" (http://ronsen.org/monkminkpinkpu
4. Griffiths 2001. nk/9/gl4.html). First published in New Hungarian
5. Steinitz 2003, 20. Quarterly. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
6. Steinitz 2003, 31 26. "Volumina, for organ" (http://www.allmusic.com/compo
sition/volumina-for-organ-mc0002406515).
7. Steinitz 2003, 70–73.
allmusic.com. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
8. Publications, Europa (2003).The International Who's
27. Plaistow n.d., 4.
Who 2004 (https://books.google.com.my/books?id=sR
4Ch1dMe8IC&pg=PA1005&lpg=PA1005&dq=ligeti+int 28. Steinitz 2003, 144.
ernational+whos+who&source=bl&ots=3bQjk82V oZ&s 29. "György Ligeti Cello Concerto"(http://www.allmusic.co
ig=NTyNxUeqHDn9LLR2jJM6zZTy6EE&hl=en&sa=X& m/composition/cello-concerto-mc0002384607) .
redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=ligeti%20international%20 Retrieved 22 November 2015.
whos%20who&f=false). Psychology Press. p. 1005. 30. "Schott Music – Shop – György Ligeti – Lontano"(htt
ISBN 9781857432176. p://www.schott-music.com/shop/9/show,175056.html).
9. Steinitz 2003, 250. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
10. Steinitz 2003, 73–74 31. Plaistow n.d., 3.
11. Benjamin 2007. 32. Plaistow n.d., 2.
12. Paul Griffiths (June 13, 2006). "Gyorgy Ligeti, Central- 33. Schell 2017
European Composer of Bleakness and Humor , Dies at 34. Steinitz 2003, 271–72.
83" (https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/arts/music/1
35. Steinitz 2003, 230.
3ligeti.html?pagewanted=all). The New York Times.
Retrieved 2015-01-31. "Gyorgy Ligeti, the Central 36. Steinitz 2003, 244.
European composer whose music was among the 37. Wilson 1992,.
most innovative of the last half of the 20th century — 38. Chen 2007, 37.
sometimes eerie, sometimes humorous usually 39. Arnowitt [2009].
fantastical and always polished — died yesterday in
40. Steinitz 2003, 292
Vienna. He was 83. His family confirmed hisdeath but
declined to divulge the cause, saying only that he had 41. Taylor 2003, 83.
been ill for several years." 42. Taylor 2003, 86.
13. Anon. n.d.(b) 43. Taylor 2003, 87.
14. Steinitz 2003 44. Quoted in Kyle Gann. The Music of Conlon
15. Griffiths 2006. Nancarrow, p.2.
16. "György Ligety ist tot; Ehrengrab in Wien"(http://www. 45. "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra"(https://en.schott-
n-tv.de/archiv/Gyoergy-Ligeti-ist-tot-article185683.htm music.com/shop/konzert-no153614.html). Schott
l). Retrieved 7 November 2013. music. Retrieved 2018-06-07.
17. Steinitz 2003, 52. 46. Steinitz 2003, 315–16
18. Steinitz 2003, 54. 47. Schell 2018
19. Toop 1999, 38. 48. Kozinn 2005.
20. Steinitz 2003, 60.
21. Steinitz 2003, 63–64
49. "György Ligeti Biography & History AllMusic"(http://w
ww.allmusic.com/artist/gy%C3%B6rgy-ligeti-mn00013
19058/biography). allmusic.com. Retrieved
22 November 2015.
50. Service 2015.
51. "Album at Allmusic" (http://www.allmusic.com/album/2
001-a-space-odyssey-r241365). Retrieved
2 November 2012.
52. Agel 1970, 12.
53. Crilly 2011, 246.
54. Anon. 2011.
55. Crilly 2011, 245n2.
56. Powrie and Stilwell 2006, 7.
57. Russell Platt, "Clarke, Kubrick and Ligeti: A Tale" (htt
p://www.newyorker.com/culture/goings-on/clarke-kubri
ck-and-ligeti-a-tale). The New Yorker, 12 August
2008]. Retrieved 1 November 2014
58. "Original Soundtrack: Shutter Island [Music from the
Motion Picture]" (http://www.allmusic.com/album/shutt
er-island-music-from-the-motion-picture-mw00017675
60). allmusic.com. 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
59. "Godzilla (2014) – Soundtrack.net"(http://www.soundtr
ack.net/movie/godzilla-2014/). 12 May 2014. Retrieved
28 May 2014.
60. "The Killing of a Sacred Deer(2017) – Soundtrack.net"
(https://www.soundtrack.net/album/the-killing-of-a-sacr
ed-deer/). 20 October 2017. Retrieved 13 January
2018.
61. "The Killing of a Sacred Deer - Original Soundtrack -
Songs, Reviews, Credits - AllMusic"(https://www.allm
usic.com/album/the-killing-of-a-sacred-deer-mw00031
11192). AllMusic. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
62. "Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow – review"(https://w
ww.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/13/over-your-cities-
grass-review). The Guardian. 13 October 2010.
Retrieved 31 January 2016.
63. Adams, Douglas (1985).The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to
the Galaxy: The Original Radio Script. ISBN 0-330-
29288-9.
64. "Pour le Mérite: György Ligeti"(http://www.orden-pourl
emerite.de/plm/mgvita/ligeti1923_vita.pdf)(PDF).
www.orden-pourlemerite.de. 2018. Retrieved 10 May
2018.
65. "1986- Gyorgy Ligeti" (https://web.archive.org/web/201
31023072838/http://grawemeyer.org/music/previous-w
inners/1986-gyorgy-ligeti.html). Archived from the
original (http://grawemeyer.org/music/previous-winner
s/1986-gyorgy-ligeti.html)on 2013-10-23.
66. Schott Music n.d.(a).
67. Schott Music n.d.(b).

Sources
Agel, Jerome. 1970. The Making of Kubrick's 2001. New York: New American Library. ISBN 0451071395.
Anon. 2011. "Classical Music in Movies: A Listing by Composers" . Braunschweig University Library. Retrieved
21 November 2015..
Anon. n.d.(a) "György Ligeti (1923-2006)". Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music website (Accessed 22 October
2013).
Anon. n.d.(b). "György Ligeti". Münchner Philharmoniker. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
Arnowitt, Michael. 2009. "Ligeti and His Influences: Music to Wow both the Mind and the Body". Michael Arnowitt
homepage (accessed 4 February 2010).
Bauer, Amy. 2011. Ligeti's Laments: Nostalgia, Exoticism, and the Absolute.Aldershot: Ashagte. ISBN 978-1-4094-
0041-7.
Benjamin, George. 2007. " In the Realm of the Senses". The Guardian (23 February).
Chen, Yung-jen. 2007. "Analysis and Performance Aspects of György Ligeti'sÉtudes pour piano: 'Fanfares' and
'Arch-en ciel'". DMA diss. Columbus: The Ohio State University .
Crilly, Ciarán. 2011. "The Bigger Picture: Ligeti’s Music and the Films of Stanley Kubrick". In ;;György Ligeti: Of
Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds, edited by Louise Duchesneau and Wolfgang Marx, 245–54. Woodbridge
(Suffolk) and Rochester (New York): Boydell & Brewer Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84383-550-9.
Cummings, Robert. n.d. "György Ligeti: Artist Biography". Allmusic website (Accessed 22 October 2013).
Duchesneau, Louise, and Wolfgang Marx (eds.). 2011. György Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds .
Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-550-9.
Gann, Kyle. n.d. The Music of Conlon Nancarrow.
Griffiths, Paul. 1997. György Ligeti. London: Robson Books.ISBN 1-86105-058-5
Griffiths, Paul. 2001. "Ligeti, György (Sándor)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , second edition,
edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Griffiths, Paul. 2006. "Gyorgy Ligeti, Central-European Composer of Bleakness and Humor , Dies at 83". The New
York Times (13 June).
Iverson, Jennifer Joy. 2009. "Historical Memory and György Ligeti's Sound-Mass Music 1958–1968 ", Ph.D. thesis.
Austin: University of Texas, Butler School of Music.
 Jones, Elliott. n.d. "Micropolyphony". candelalearning.com. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
Kozinn, Allan. 2005. "The Prankster as Omnivore". The New York Times (14 November).
Ligeti, György. 1988. "On My Piano Concerto", translated by Robert Cogan.Sonus: A Journal of Investigations into
Global Musical Possibilities9, no. 1 (Fall): 8–13.
Lobanova. Marina. 2002.György Ligeti: Style, Ideas, Poetics. Studia Slavica Musicologica 29. Berlin: V erlag Ernst
Kuhn. ISBN 3-928864-90-4.
Plaistow, Stephen. n.d. Liner notes toLigeti: Chamber Concerto, Ramifications, String Quartet No. 2, vAentures, Lux
aeterna. Deutsche Grammophon CD 423 244-2. Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon.
Powrie, Phil, and Robynn Jeananne Stilwell. 2006.Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-Existing Music in Film.: Ashgate
Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 0754651371.
Schell, Michael. 2017. "György Ligeti’s Musical Odyssey". Second Inversion website (Accessed 4 April 2018).
Schell, Michael. 2018. "The Late Works of György Ligeti". Second Inversion website (Accessed 4 April 2018).
Schott Music. n.d.(a). "György Ligeti: Profile". Schott Music website (Accessed 14 January 2011).
Schott Music. n.d.(b). "György Ligeti: Chronology". Schott Music website (Accessed 21 October 2009).
Searby, Michael, 2010. Ligeti's Stylistic Crisis: Transformation in His Musical Style 1974-1985. Lanham, MD:
Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7250-9
Service, Tom. 2015. "Pierre-Laurent Aimard Opens a World of Imagination in Ligeti's Piano Music". The Guardian
(20 July; accessed 11 December 2015.
Sire, Adeline. 2012. "Composer Mohammed Fairouz’s Orchestral Take on the Tahrir Square Uprising". "BBC/PRI
The World" (25 January) (Retrieved 24 August 2012).
Steinitz, Richard. 2003.György Ligeti: Music of the Imagination. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-17631-3;
Boston: Northeastern University Press.ISBN 1-55553-551-8.
Taylor, Stephen Andrew. 2003. "For György Ligeti on His 80th Birthday: Ligeti, Africa and Polyrhythm ". The World of
Music 45, no. 2 ("Traditional Music and Composition"): 83–94.
Toop, Richard. 1999. György Ligeti. London: Phaidon Press.ISBN 0-7148-3795-4.
Tusa, John. [2001]. "The John Tusa Interviews: Transcript of the John Tusa Interview with Gyorgy Ligeti". BBC Radio
3. www.bbc.co.uk (Accessed 23 January 2012).
Wihuri Foundation. n.d. "Wihuri Foundation for International Prizes". ( Accessed 5 March 2010).
Wilson, Peter Niklas. 1992. "Interkulturelle Fantasien: György Ligetis Klavieretüden Nr 7 und 8". Melos: Jahrbuch für
zeitgenössische Musik51 ("Klaviermusik des 20. Jahrhunderts"): 63–84.

Further reading
Drott, Eric. 2011. "Lines, Masses, Micropolyphony: Ligeti's Kyrie and the 'Crisis of the Figure'".
Perspectives of New
Music 49, no. 1 (Winter):4–46.
Edwards, Peter. 2016. György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre: Postmodernism, Musico-Dramatic Form and the
Grotesque. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1472456984
Floros, Constantin. 2014.György Ligeti: Beyond Avant-Garde and Postmodernism, translated by Ernest Bernhardt-
Kabisch. Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler erlag
V der Wissenschaften.ISBN 978-3631654996

External links
Obituaries and remembrances

The BBC obituary

Obituary for György Ligeti, Plaistow, Stephen. The Guardian, Wednesday June 14, 2006, Retrieved June14, 2006.

Other links

www.gyorgy-ligeti.com: Official Site with complete catalogue and list of performances

www.gyoergy-ligeti.de/ page from Ligeti's publisher Schott, with non-proprietary audio files
EssentialsofMusic.com: Gyorgy Ligetirequires proprietary realmedia player
György Ligeti’s Musical Odyssey focusing on music used in 2001: A Space Odyssey
The Late Works of György Ligeti from Second Inversion and Michael Schell
CompositionToday – Ligeti article and reviewof works
 Excerpts from sound archivesof Ligeti's works.
Collection of research on Ligeti's music and links to recordings.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=György_Ligeti&oldid=846460961

"

This page was last edited on 18 June 2018, at 22:39(UTC).

Text is available under theCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of theWikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.