György Ligeti : music of the imagination

One of the world's best known living composers, Gyorgy Sandor Ligeti is widely acknowledged as the most influential and admired creative figure of the late twentieth century. His brilliantly conceived and challenging pieces, searingly intense at times and full of humor and irony at others, include the orchestral Apparitions and Atmospheres, piano etudes, the opera Le Grand Macabre, and the unaccompanied choral work Lux aeterna, which Stanly Kubrick actually pirated for the film soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this book, Richard Steinitz fuses biographical, stylistic, and technical analysis to examine thoroughly the evolution of Ligeti's innovative music. Drawing extensively on his own private conversations with the composer as well as on many published and recorded interviews, Steinitz places Ligeti's extraordinary body of work within the context of his complex personal life. **Richard Steinitz** is a composer and Professor of Music at the University of Huddersfield. He is the founder and former Artistic Director of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. He lives in England. An illuminating study of the life and work of György Ligeti, one of the best-loved and most original composers of our time. For 50 years György Ligeti has pursued a boldly independent and uncompromising course, yet his music is widely loved and admired. Ever since Stanley Kubrick's (unsanctioned) use of his music on the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey, interest in Ligeti has extended far beyond the classical domain. He is the only living composer whose complete output, including juvenilia, is being systematically issued on CD. Published to coincide with the composer's eightieth birthday, Richard Steinitz's compelling new book is both an illuminating study of the music and its associative ideas - drawn from literature, theatre, the visual arts, fractal mathematics, ethnic cultures and other maverick composers - and of Ligeti the man. Ligeti has confided in Steinitz a mass of previously unknown biographical information. The result is an astonishing account of his early upbringing in Romania, of his terrifying yet surreal experiences in the war, and of his difficulties attempting to forge an identity as a young composer under repressive censorship in Communist Hungary, before his dramatic escape to the West in 1956. The story continues via Ligeti's association with the Western avant-garde and his increasingly masterful sequence of highly individual compositions, which Steinitz brings vividly to life through informative commentaries as well as through the composer's own words. One of the world's best known living composers, Gyoergy Sandor Ligeti is widely acknowledged as the most influential and admired creative figure of the late twentieth century. His brilliantly conceived and challenging pieces, searingly intense at times and full of humor and irony at others, include the orchestral Apparitions and Atmospheres, piano etudes, the opera Le Grand Macabre, and the unaccompanied choral work Lux aeterna, which Stanly Kubrick actually pirated for the film soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In this book, Richard Steinitz fuses biographical, stylistic, and technical analysis to examine thoroughly the evolution of Ligeti's innovative music. Drawing extensively on his own private conversations with the composer as well as on many published and recorded interviews, Steinitz places Ligeti's extraordinary body of work within the context of his complex personal life.

One of the world's best known living composers, György Sándor Ligeti is widely acknowledged as the most influential and admired creative figure of the late twentieth century. His brilliantly conceived and challenging pieces, searingly intense at times and full of humor and irony at others, include the orchestral Apparitions and Atmosphères, piano études, the opera Le Grand Macabre, and the unaccompanied choral work Lux aeterna, which Stanley Kubrick actually pirated for the film soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this book, Richard Steinitz fuses biographical, stylistic, and technical analysis to examine thoroughly the evolution of Ligeti's innovative music. Drawing extensively on his own private conversations with the composer as well as on many published and recorded interviews, Steinitz places Ligeti's extraordinary body of work within the context of his complex personal life Cover Title Page Dedication Epigraph List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction PART ONE: From East to West 1: The Making of the Man 2: Night and Morning: an East European Apprenticeship 3: Catching Up 4: The Watershed of 1960: International Debut PART TWO: Fantasy and Technique 5: Distorting Mirrors: Humour and Antilogic 6: Distance and Enchantment 7: A Gestural Kaleidoscope 8: Spider’s Web: The Labyrinth of Melodies 9: Dis(c)loc(k)ation and Transformation PART THREE: The Grand Illusionist 10: Alice in Breughelland: A Grotesque Carnival of Sex and Death 11: In the midst of life ... 12: The Dynamics of Disorder 13: The Piano Études 14: Curiouser and curiouser 15: On (Not) Writing Opera APPENDIX: Productions of Le Grand Macabre Glossary Chronological list of works Bibliography Discography Index Plates About the Author Copyright "In this book, Richard Steinitz fuses biographical, stylistic, and technical analysis to thoroughly examine the evolution of Ligeti's innovative music. Drawing extensively on his own private conversations with the composer as well as on many published and recorded interviews, Steinitz places Ligeti's extraordinary body of work within the context of his complex personal life."--BOOK JACKET. Gyorgy Ligeti, one of the best-loved and most original composers, has pursued a boldly independent and uncompromising course, yet his music is widely loved and admired. This book studies the music and its associative ideas - drawn from literature, theatre, the visual arts, ethnic cultures and other maverick composers - and Ligeti the man.