Requiescat in pace - sive hilaritate. The great György Ligeti is dead. I
remember hearing one of?) the first German performance(s) of Nouvelles
Aventures in 1966 at the Norddeutscher Rundfunk and going home drunk
with his invention, susurrating, gurgling & guignolling in the streets
of Hamburg. The pathetic British press seems to think it is obligatory
to mention Kubrick in their obits - one of them even eagerly assured us
that Ligeti had already been briefly a "populist" (sic) composer in his
youth before his sanctification by association with St. Stanley. If
there was one thing Ligeti never was, it was any sort of populist: he
detested tyrannies of any kind, including those of noisy majorities.
Celebrate his infinitely subtle & wayward art that will live on as you
listen to (riffling through the CDs) Clocks and Clouds, the diverse
concertos, San Francisco Polyphony, the Études pour piano, Lontano, the
wonderful Nonsense Madrigals, The Grand Macabre & last but not least the
Requiem.
mj
--
Onko onni unta vain?
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