Klarinet Archive - Posting 000058.txt from 2006/06

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Death of Gyorgy Ligeti
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:29:16 -0400

Jun 12, 11:51 AM EDT

'Space Odyssey' composer Ligeti dies

By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press Writer

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who survived the
Holocaust and fled Hungary after the 1956 revolution, then won
acclaim for his opera "Le Grand Macabre" and his work on the
soundtrack for "2001: A Space Odyssey," died Monday. He was 83.

Ligeti, celebrated as one of the world's leading 20th century
musical
pioneers, died in Vienna after a long illness, said Christiane
Krauscheid, a spokeswoman for his publisher, Germany-based Schott
Music. Details were unavailable, but Austrian media said he spent
the
last three years in a wheelchair.

Ligeti (pronounced lig'-ih-tee) was born in 1923 to Hungarian
parents
in the predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Romania's
Transylvania
region. His father and brother later were murdered by the Nazis.
He
took Austrian citizenship in 1967 after fleeing his ex-communist
homeland.

He began studying music under Ferenc Farkas at the conservatory
in
Cluj, Romania, in 1941, and continued his studies in Budapest.
But in
1943, he was arrested as a Jew and sentenced to forced labor for
the
rest of World War II.

"My life in the Nazi era and under communist rule was full of
risks,
and I believe I still reflect this feeling," he once told the
Austria
Press Agency in an interview.

After the war, Ligeti resumed his studies with Farkas and Sandor
Veress at Budapest's Franz Liszt Academy. After graduation in
1949,
he did research on Romanian folk music and then returned to the
academy as an instructor in harmony, counterpoint and formal
analysis.

Ligeti attracted wide atttention for "Macabre," which he wrote in
1978.

Ligeti's early work was heavily censored by Hungary's repressive
regime, but his arrival in Vienna in 1956 opened up new
possibilities. In the Austrian capital, he met key players in
Western
Europe's avant-garde music movement such as Karlheinz
Stockhausen,
Gottfried Michael Koenig and Herbert Eimert, who invited him to
join
an electronic music studio at West Germany's state radio in
Cologne
in 1957.

He won early critical acclaim for his 1958 electronic composition
"Artikulation" and the orchestral "Apparitions." He gained
notoriety
for a technique he called "micropolyphony," which wove together
musical color and texture in ways that transcended the
traditional
borders of melody, harmony and rhythm.

Ligeti spoke at least six languages, including his native
Hungarian,
German, French, and English, said Stephen Ferguson, who worked as
his
assistant and editor at Schott Music from 1992-96.

"He was one of the few avant-garde composers who found his way
into
the modern program," Ferguson said. "He was fascinated by
patterns,
but at the same time created wonderful atmospheres, such as in
the
music used in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' or in 'Clocks and Clouds.'

"He reintroduced techniques of polyphony out of the tradition of
Bach
and Palestrina with a playful and innovative sense of sound. He
developed a new sound - cluster sound - which fascinated director
Stanley Kubrick and propelled Ligeti to the top of the great
composers of the second half of the 20th century."

Excerpts of his "Atmospheres," a requiem and 1966's "Lux Aeterna"
were used on the bestselling soundtrack for Kubrick's "Space
Odyssey." Although the music was not the film's well-known
fanfare,
which was composed by Richard Strauss, it won Ligeti a global
audience.

Kubrick returned to Ligeti in 1999, using the composer's Musica
Ricercata II (Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale), as the theme for what
turned out to be his final film, "Eyes Wide Shut."

Ligeti, who for a time also lived in Germany and San Francisco
and
was a visiting professor at the Stockholm Academy of Music for
many
years, was known for striking a playful note with his music,
epitomized by a piece he wrote for 100 metronomes.

Sir Simon Rattle was a fan of Ligeti and led many performances of
his
works during his tenure at the City of Birmingham Symphony
Orchestra
before taking over the Berlin Philharmonic.

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel hailed Ligeti on Monday as
"the greatest Austrian in the 20th century music world," and the
city
of Vienna said it would offer a special grave site in honor of
its
adopted composer.

Ligeti is survived by his wife, Vera, and a son, Lukas, a
percussionist who lives in New York. Funeral arrangements were
incomplete.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBIT_LIGETI?SITE=CADIU&SEC
TION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org