György Ligeti

György Ligeti is a Compositeur Hungarian naturalized Austrian, born in Diciosânmartin in Romania (Hungarian: Dicsöszentmárton , today Târnăveni) the May 28th 1923 and dead the June 12th 2006 with Vienna.

Biography

Initially formed with the academy of Cluj /Kolozsv àr in Transylvania, the Ligeti young person had to stop his studies in 1943, following measurements anti-semite S taken successively by the regent Horthy (whose army had re-occupied the major part of the ex-territory Austro-Hungarian reserved for Romania by the Traité of Trianon) and the mode of the fléchées Croix. Almost the totality of its family disappeared in deportation (only his/her mother survived).

After the Second world war, it leaves to study the music and the composition with the Académie Franz Liszt with Budapest, before taking refuge with Vienna. After the listening of the " Song of the adolescents" of Stockhausen, he contacts this last which accepts to integrate it into its studio of Cologne, where he meets Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio and Mauricio Kagel, with which he worked.

He settles with Vienna in 1959, where he obtains Austrian nationality in 1967. Thereafter, he teaches with Darmstadt, like Hamburg and Stockholm.

He dies on June 12th 2006 with Vienna.

Works

The work of Ligeti is more varied, since it only goes from the part for Piano to the opera, while passing by the Chamber music, the Orchestre, the Electronic music and of the more anecdotic formations ( Symphonic poem for 100 metronomes ), without forgetting the Orgue and the Clavecin which appear rather little in the Modern music.

Works of the Hungarian period of Ligeti, in particular the First string quartet , have an inspiration clearly bartókienne, but have already the side iconoclast which will be affirmed later. Thus, the eleven parts of Musica ricercata are written by using only two notes for the first part (the second note appearing besides only with the last measurement), then three, and so on to the last part which is dodecaphonic. In spite of this part, Ligeti will remain later remote Dodécaphonisme or Serial music. Six of these parts were arranged for Wind quintet. In the first quartet one finds also this progression mathematical, since the intervals used increase gradually with each movement while starting with the semitone.

After its escape of Hungary, the two electronic parts Glissandi (1957) and Artikulation (1958) remain isolated in work from Ligeti, since he will not resort any more to this technique later, preferring most of the time to carry out experiments on acoustic instruments. These two parts are besides very different one from the other: in Glissandi , which uses the principles of the modeling of the phenomena Psychoacoustique S, Ligeti explores a subtle play of slip between harmony and stamp, between fusion and integration, whereas Artikulation has an approach definitely more “bruitist”, with sound objects having a clean individuality.

In 1961, the part for full orchestra Atmosphères continues the way inaugurated in Glissandi by introducing the technique of “microphone-tonality”, where a extremely tight counterpoint with small intervals and a great number of voices is not perceived any more as such, in its detail, but as a moving sound mass. Lontano (1967) for orchestra and Lux Æterna (1966) for chorus explore similar ways. Ligeti, by this esthetics of ambivalence harmony-stamp, will influence much the generation of the type-setters of the spectral school.

In the Symphonic poem for 100 metronomes of 1962, the rattling of the latter is organized during nearly twenty minutes by an interpreter who precisely regulates the tempos and the departures. This part was a hoax, a thumb your nose with the intelligentsia avant-gardist (of which it formed part), in particular inspired by the plays of American Cage. It created a real scandal at the time of its first representation…

Ligeti refined this technique - where the repetition of the same sound in several voices at almost identical speeds creates dephasings evolving/moving slowly in time - in various works, in particular in the scherzos of the Second string quartet (1968) and of the Concerto of room (1970), like in the Three parts for two pianos (1976). In addition to this purely rhythmic technique, Ramifications (1969) for double string orchestra scrambles the lines by granting one of the two orchestras to a tuning fork slightly different from that of the other.

Adventures and Nouvelles adventures constitutes a form of musical theater using of the unusual vocal techniques (cry, growl, laughter…). Far from the concerns of micropolyphonic or polyrythmic works of Ligeti, these two parts return rather to an approach which goes back to Artikulation .

Works of the last period (concertos for piano, violoncello, for violin, as well as the Studies for piano ), following in that a general tendency of the modern music, join again more or less with the tradition by using diatonism, even Tonalité, and melody, but the invention and the joke of the type-setter remain intact.

Anecdote

The realizer Stanley Kubrick used several times the music of György Ligeti in his films, in particular Atmosphères , Requiem , Lux Æterna in 2001, the odyssey of space (“the black monolith”) and Musica Ricercata in Eyes Wide Shut (the topic with the piano, “like a stab in the heart of Stalin”, according to Ligeti).

Principal works

  • 1951 - 1953: Musica Ricercata , eleven parts for piano
  • 1953: Six Trifles for wind quintet (Arrangement of six parts of Musica Ricercata )
  • 1951 - 1954: 1st String quartet , “Metamorphoses night”
  • 1957: Glissandi , electronic composition
  • 1958: Artikulation , electronic composition
  • 1961: Atmospheres , for full orchestra
  • 1962: Volumina , for organ
  • 1962: Adventures
  • 1963 - 1965: Requiem
  • 1966: Concerto for violoncello
  • 1966: New Adventures
  • 1966: Lux Æterna
  • 1967: Lontano , for orchestra of cords and winds,
  • 1968: Continuum , for harpsichord
  • 1968: 2nd String quartet
  • 1968: Continuum , for harpsichord
  • 1968 - 1969: Ramifications , for double string orchestra
  • 1969: “Cast” Study n°2 , for organ
  • 1969: Concerto of room
  • 1971: Melodien , for chamber orchestra
  • 1972: Clocks and Clouds , for 12 votes of women and orchestra
  • 1976: Three parts for two pianos ( Monument , Selbstportrait , Bewegung )
  • 1974 - 1977: Large Macabre the , opera
  • 1982: Trio for violin, horn and piano
  • 1983: Three Imaginations for chorus has cappella according to Hölderlin
  • 1985: Studies for piano , First book
  • 1985 - 1988: Concerto for piano
  • 1988 - 1994: Studies for piano , Second book
  • 1994: Sonata for viola alone
  • 1995 - 2001: Studies for piano , Third book
  • 1998 - 2003: Concerto for horn and orchestra with 4 obliged horns ( Hamburger Konzert )
  • 2000: Sippal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel , cycle of melodies on poems of Sándor Weöres, for mezzo-soprano and quartet of percussions

External bonds

  • Analysis of the '' Concerto of room '' of Ligeti
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