Ligeti, György

(1923–2006) 

Born 28 March 1923 in Dicsőszentmárton (now Târnăveni) in Transylvania, died 12 June 2006 in Vienna. He went to school in Kolozsvár (Cluj), where he also started piano studies and wrote his first compositions. At the age of sixteen he composed a symphony. In 1941–43 he studied at the local conservatoire with Ferenc Farkas, receiving additional tuition from Pál Kadosa in Budapest. Nationalist upheaval and anti-Semitism in Transylvania prevented him from completing his studies in mathematics and physics at the University of Cluj. In 1943 he was deported to a Nazi forced labour camp. His brother Gábor died in Mauthausen and his father in Auschwitz; the composer’s mother managed to survive a Nazi concentration camp. After the war, in 1945–49, Ligeti resumed his studies at the Music Academy in Budapest under Ferenc Farkas and Sándor Veress. He stayed at the Academy as a lecturer in harmony, counterpoint and musical form until his emigration from Hungary in 1956. Initially accepting socialism, he wrote a number of works within the official folklorist style. Yet he increasingly attempted to develop his own compositional technique, writing without much hope of publication. 

In December 1956, following the Soviet invasion and suppression of the Hungarian Revolution, he walked across the border to Austria and settled in Vienna, eventually becoming an Austrian citizen. In 1957–59 he worked at the WDR Electronic Music Studio in Cologne. Already with his Apparitions (1958–59) he attracted the attention of new music critics, becoming widely known and appreciated as composer and teacher in the 1960s. 

In 1959–72 he lectured at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt. In 1969, while the Warsaw Pact armies were invading Czechoslovakia, he unexpectedly came to Smolenice in Slovakia and gave a lecture at the last Workshops for New Music. For ten years (1961–71) he was guest professor in Stockholm. He gave masterclasses in many cities around the world and in the 1970s was active as a teacher in the United States. In 1989 he became professor emeritus at the High School of Music and Theatre in Hamburg. From 2000 ill health increasingly restricted his activity as a composer. His last finished work was the Etude for Piano no. 18: Canon. 

Many of his works have become a permanent part of the concert repertoire, being performed the Warsaw Autumn Festival on numerous occasions. One of the major events of the 2000 Warsaw Autumn was the piano recital of Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who performed the Musica ricercata cycle and 17 Etudes for piano (with the exception of the last, composed in 2001), the concert was published on CD as part of the Warsaw Autumn Sound Chronicle. Ligeti received many prestigious medals, awards and honorary doctorates, including the Grawemayer Award (1986), Wolf Foundation Prize (1996), Kossuth Award (2003), and Polar Music Prize (2004). He lived in Vienna, Hamburg, and Berlin. Asked who he was, he used to answer, “I am a Hungarian from Transylvania of Jewish descent, citizen of Austria.” He thought of Hungary as his homeland, but stressed that as an assimilated Jew, he was not a pure Hungarian, and without baptism he could not call himself fully assimilated. His ancestors included the eminent nineteenth-century violinist Leopold Auer. 

Selected works (from 1965): Requiemfor soprano, mezzo-soprano, two mixed choirs and large orchestra (1963–65),Lux aeterna for 16-part mixed a cappella choir (1966), Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (1966), Lontano for orchestra (1967), Harmonies, etude no. 1 for organ (1967), Continuum for harpsichord (1968), String Quartet no. 2 (1968), Zehn Stücke für Bläserquintett (1968), Rami cations for 12 string instruments or string orchestra (1968–69), Coulée, etude no. 2 for organ (1969), Kammerkonzert for 13 instrumentalists (1969–70), Melodies for orchestra (1971), Doppelkonzert for flute, oboe and orchestra (1972), Clocks and Clouds for 12-part female choir and orchestra (1972–73), San Francisco Polyphony for orchestra (1973–74),Monument, Selbstportrait, Bewegung, three pieces for two pianos (1976), Le Grand Macabre, opera after Michel de Ghelderode (1975–77, rev. 1996), Hungarian Rock (Chaconne) for harpsichord (1978), Passacaglia ungherese for harpsichord (1978), Trio for violin, horn and piano (1982), Drei Phantasien nach F. Hölderlin for 16-part mixed a cappella choir (1982), Etudes for Piano, Book 1: Désordre, Cordes vides, Touchés bloqués, Fanfares, Arc-en-ciel, Automne à Varsovie (1985), Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1985–88), Six Nonsense Madrigals for six male voices to words by W. B. Rands and L. Carroll (1988–89), Mysteries of the Macabre, three arias from the opera Le Grand Macabre arranged by Elgar Howarth for coloratura soprano to words by Michael Meschke and György Ligeti in an English translation by Geoffrey Skelton after Michel de Ghelderode’s La Ballade du Grand Macabre(1974–77, rev. 1991), Coloana fără sfârşit for player piano (1988–93), Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1990, rev. 1992), Etudes for Piano, Book 2: Galam borong, Fém, Vertige, Der Zauberlehrling, En suspens, Entrelacs, L’escalier du diable, Coloana infinită (1988–94), Sonata for Viola (1991–94), Hamburgisches Konzert for horn and chamber orchestra (1998–99, rev. 2002), Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedűvel for mezzo-soprano and four percussionists to words by Sándor Weöres (2000), Etudes for Piano, Book 3: White on White, Pour Irina, À bout de souffle, Canon (1995–2001).