REFERENCES

World War II
http://www.schott-music.com/shop/persons/az/gyoergy-ligeti/vitae/
http://www.gyorgy-ligeti.com/
http://www.npr.org/artists/92885650/gyorgy-ligeti
https://sites.google.com/site/ligeticomposer/home
E-book: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/truman/reader.action?docID=10999166

IMPORTANT WORKS
Apparitions (195859/1960)

Lux Aeterna (1966/1966)

Lontano (1967/1967)

Cello Concerto (1966/1967)

Atmosphres (1961/1961)

Le Grand Macabre (1978)

Volumina (196162, revised 1966)

tudes for piano (19852001)

Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures (1966/1966)

Requiem (196365/1965)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Beethoven Prize of Bonn (1967)

Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, London (1992)[62]

Berlin Art Prize (Requiem) (1965)

Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, Germany (1993)

UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers (1969)

Schock Prize for Musical Arts (1995)

Berlin Art Prize (1972)

Music Award of the UNESCO (1996)

Bach Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1975)

Wolf Prize in Arts, Israel (1996)

Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (1987)

Wihuri Sibelius Prize, Finland (2000)[63]

Honorary Ring of the Vienna (1987)

Kyoto Prize (2001)

Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1988)[61]

Medal of Arts and Sciences of the City of Hamburg (2003)

Lonie Sonning Music Prize (Denmark, 1990)

Theodor W. Adorno Award (2003)

Grand Austrian State Prize for Music (1990)

Kossuth Prize (Hungary, 2003)

Praemium Imperiale (1991)

Polar Music Prize (2004)

Balzan Prize (1991)

Frankfurt Music Prize (2005)

Gyrgy Sndor Ligeti

(1923-2006)
Transylvania, Romania
One of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the XX century

WORKS
Ligeti's earlier works used a technique known as micropolyphony. This is a similar technique to polyphony but with
the main difference that the polyphony is hidden through a dense and rich stack of pitches.
Ligetis music from the last two decades of his life is unmistakable for its rhythmic complexity. Writing about his first
book of Piano Etudes, the composer claims this rhythmic complexity stems from two vastly different sources of
inspiration: the Romantic-era piano music of Chopin and Schumann and the indigenous music of sub-Saharan
Africa. The difference between the earlier and later pieces lies in a new conception of pulse. In the earlier works,
the pulse is something to be divided into two, three and so on. The effect of these different subdivisions, especially
when they occur simultaneously, is to blur the aural landscape, creating the micropolyphonic effect of Ligetis
music.

Studies

After World War II

1929

1949

Conservatory in Cluj, Romania

Summers with Pl Kadosa in Budapest

World War II

Graduate from Franz Liszt Academy of Music

Studying with Pl Kadosa, Ferenc Farkas, Zoltn Kodly
and Sndor Veress
He went to do ethnomusicological research into the
Hungarian folk music in Transylvania
Returns to Franz Liszt Academy of Music as teacher

1944
Education interrupted, he was sent to a forced
labor brigade by the Horthy regime
Brother and parents were sent to Auschwitz
and only his mother was the only survivor

1956
Fled to Vienna for the violent suppress of the
Hungarian revolution by the Soviet Army
Few weeks later in Cologne, Germany he met
Stockhausen and Koenig working in electronic music