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Composer

György Ligeti

1923 — 2006

About

György Ligeti

An Austrian composer of Hungarian extraction, Ligeti was born in Transylvania in 1923. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy between 1945 and 1949 and taught there from 1950 to 1956, having in the meantime undertaken field research into Romanian folk music. He left his native Hungary in 1956 and travelled to Vienna, where he met leading figures of the avant-garde, including Herbert Eimert, who invited him to join him at his Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne. He first found his distinctive voice as a composer in the late 1950s and early 1960s with such works as Apparitions and Atmosphères, both scored for large orchestra. He turned his back on pure electronic music and also distanced himself from the serialism espoused by many of his contemporaries. Eschewing distinct pitches and intervals as the basis of his music, he concentrated on timbre, duration, density, and compass, creating a slow and static-seeming language of exceptional sensitivity and nuance that places him at the forefront of the musical avant-garde. His most important works are Lontano for orchestra, Ramifications for Strings, and, together with a number of concertos for cello and instrumental ensemble, Aventures and Nouvelles aventures, the last of which describes "the fantastical vicissitudes of imaginary characters on an imaginary stage." His opera Le grand macabre reveals his love of the fantastical and the absurd.

György Ligeti: The Life and Works of an Avant-Garde Composer

György Ligeti was a significant Hungarian-Austrian avant-garde composer, born on May 28, 1923, in the Transylvanian town of Diciosânmartin (now Tîrnăveni), Romania. His early life was marked by tragedy during the Nazi regime, which led to Ligeti himself being subjected to forced labor. His mother was the only family member who survived Auschwitz.

Ligeti studied composition with Ferenc Farkas and Sándor Veress at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest from 1945 to 1949, later teaching there from 1950 to 1956. During this period, he engaged in field research into Romanian folk music, which informed some of his earlier compositions and folksong arrangements published in Hungary.

Ligeti's Journey to Austria and His Musical Evolution

In 1956, amid the Hungarian Revolution, Ligeti fled Hungary for political and artistic reasons and moved to Vienna, where he became a citizen in 1968. In Vienna, he connected with avant-garde figures such as Herbert Eimert, who invited him to Cologne's Studio for Electronic Music. Although he experimented with electronic music, Ligeti eventually distanced himself from both pure electronic music and the serialism favored by many contemporaries. Instead, he developed a distinctive compositional voice focused on texture, timbre, duration, density, and pitch clusters rather than traditional melody and harmony, notably employing micropolyphony—a technique exemplified in works like Atmosphères (1961).

Notable Works and Ligeti's Innovative Style

Some of Ligeti's most renowned compositions include Apparitions and Atmosphères for large orchestra, which showcase his signature dense, shifting sound masses, Lontano for orchestra and Ramifications for strings, a series of concertos for cello and instrumental ensembles, vocal-instrumental works like Aventures and Nouvelles aventures, which depict "fantastical vicissitudes of imaginary characters on an imaginary stage," and the opera Le Grand Macabre, notable for its blend of the absurd and the fantastical.