Guardian obituary and
later article.
I only discovered Ligeti’s music quite recently. I found 2001: A Space Odyssey unbearably dreary and didn’t really register the presence of Ligeti’s music in the soundtrack, so it wasn’t until the recent Proms retrospective (2004, I think) that I was inspired to investigate his music. I wish I’d taken the trouble sooner.
I was pleased to find a couple of familiar reference points right away… “Melodien” and “Mysteries of the Macabre” remind me of some of Frank Zappa’s chamber music, while “Lux Aeterna” bears a resemblance, in its shifting washes of choral sound, to Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima”. Some of Ligeti’s music is pretty challenging (the Poéme Symphonique for 100 metronomes is interesting, but not a piece I’d put on heavy rotation) but there are also many examples of incredible beauty. In every piece I’ve listened to, though, the common thread is the sense of a restless, inquiring musical mind and a deep appreciation for the possibilities of musical sound.