Ligeti festival - tribute to adventurous and idiosyncratic composer

Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) suffered under several dictatorships; the Nazis killed his father and brother during World War II, and after the War the Communists forced him to write sweet 'folk music'. After the 1956 Hungarian uprising, he fled to Vienna and then to Cologne.

In the West, he unpopularised into an idiosyncratic composer, who soon resisted the dogmas of the avant-garde and took a different path. In this, microtanliness, as well as irony and humour, play a major role. From Thursday 5 to Sunday 8 April, he takes centre stage during a large-scale Ligeti festival in Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ.

Love for Bartók

György Ligeti was born in 1923 in a small town in Transylvania to a Jewish family. In 1941, he started studying composition with Ferenc Farkas, but three years later he was summoned to a labour camp by the Nazis. Only after the end of World War II was he able to resume his studies.

He immediately moved to Budapest, where he studied again with Farkas, but also with Sándor Veress. They passed on their love for Bartók to him, which comes through in early compositions like the First String Quartet. This will be performed on Saturday 7 April by the Dudok Quartet.

In 1949, Ligeti completed his studies at Budapest's Franz Liszt Conservatory, where he immediately took up teaching harmony himself. By now, the communists had taken over and there was a strong emphasis on 'folk' elements in art music.

Ligeti did not have much trouble with this per se, as Bartók too had been inspired by folk music. Within the given limitations, he looked for ways to still create a personal sound world. For instance in the Cello Sonata he composed for Hungarian Radio in 1953.

'Formalist tendencies'

It was banned immediately after the broadcast because of 'formalistic tendencies'; henceforth Ligeti composed for the proverbial desk drawer. Meanwhile, he kept the authorities happy with choral works in the style of Kodály. In 1953, he completed his Musica ricercata, a collection of 11 pieces for solo piano.

These stand Friday 6 April on the programme of the French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. The first movement opens with only two tones: a fundamental and its octave. In each subsequent variation, one tone is added to this, until, in the eleventh movement, all twelve tones of the Western tonal system come to sound.

Hungary was officially cut off from the pernicious West just after World War II. However, this did not prevent Ligeti from secretly listening to German radio stations at night. These, incidentally, were disrupted by signals from the Hungarian government, so mainly the high frequencies got through.

In this mutilated form, he heard works like the Turangalîla Symphony by Messiaen and electronic music by Herbert Eimert. The thoughts of these matched his need for renewal. As soon as a period of dew arrived in 1954, he bought scores and records by modern composers.

Gesang der Jünglinge

During this period Ligeti also heard the first radio broadcast of Stockhausen's band composition Gesang der Jünglinge. He was deeply impressed and contacted his German colleague by letter. He also wrote to Herbert Eimert, director of WDR's electronic studio in Cologne.

A month after the Russians invaded in November 1956, Ligeti fled to Cologne via Vienna. There he was welcomed with open arms by Stockhausen and Eimert. In the electronic studio, he completed his first 'Western' composition, Artikulation for band.

From communist to musical dictatorship

Although Ligeti agreed in principle with the principles of Stockhausen and his kindred spirits, he did not like the rigidity of serialism. In it, all musical parameters are ordered according to strict rules. Once he fled from one dictatorship, he did not want to submit to a new dicature of the musical avant-garde.

He became fascinated by the idea of replacing strict order precisely with a large degree of freedom. Against a strictly regulated rhythm, he placed an unbound rhythm; against the tone sequences of the serialists, he put clusters. These are harmonies of densely swarming (micro)tones, which were unknown in Western art music until then. This led in 1960 to the pioneering orchestral work Apparitions, which caused a scandal at its premiere. - Ligeti's name as an independent avant-gardist was established forever.

Music from metronomes

After this, Ligeti composed the also cluster-based works Atmosphere and Volumina. But soon he was breaking new ground again. In 1961, for instance, he wrote Die Zukunft der Musik, in which he merely chalked instructions on a blackboard for his audience. This was followed a year later by Poème Symphonique, in which 100 metronomes create a complex 'micropolyphony'. Its 1963 premiere at Hilversum's Raadhuis caused another scandal.

Ligeti commissioned this contrarian piece for the Gaudeamus Music Week. It will be performed live on Saturday 7 April in the entrance hall of Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. Daily, moreover, is the television registration of the 1963 premiere, which NOS decided not to broadcast at the time. For a long time, the recorded material was considered lost but it was recently found in the archives of Sound and Vision.

Time and again, Ligeti confirmed his sovereign spirit. Where his colleagues abhorred any tonality, he deadpanned creating harmonic centres of gravity again in his music. As in the choral work Lux Aeterna from 1966, which was immortalised thanks to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. The Dutch Chamber Choir Performs it 7 April, led by conductor Reinbert de Leeuw, who worked a lot with Ligeti.

Autoclaxons alongside Rossini arias

In the years 1974-77, György Ligeti worked on his opera Le Grand Macabre, his magnum opus. It is based on the absurdist play Ballade du Grand Macabre by Belgian author Michel de Ghelderode and is set in the time of Breughel. The hero Nekrotzar - the 'Grand Macabre' of the title - announces the end of time, which will occur at midnight. But when it finally strikes midnight, Nekrotzar is the only one to die.

At Le Grand Macabre Ligeti brought together everything he had achieved up to that point; the music is often downright hilarious. Opening with an overture of autoclaxons, the opera juxtaposes Rossini-like arias with alienating recitatives and abyssal screams. The singers burp and we are additionally treated to the sound of whips and other 'unmusical' objects. Musical references to predecessors like Rossini and Monteverdi take on an ironic connotation as a result.

Own course

After Le Grand Macabre Ligeti became somewhat deadlocked. Inquisitive and original-minded as he was, he simply refused to repeat himself. He had always steered his own course alongside that of the avant-gardists Boulez, Stockhausen and Nono. Yet he was invariably mentioned in the same breath as them. When their influence began to wane, he was in danger of being dragged into this downward spiral. Especially when a younger generation of composers returned to old forms, harmonies and tonality.

Ligeti did not wish to ride this current of new euphony, but was inspired by it. In 1982, he wrote his Horn Trio, in which he pairs Caribbean rhythms with Brahms-like melodies. However, these are just slightly out of tune. The irregular rhythms are somewhat akin to Hungarian folk music. The Horn Trio is Saturday 7 April performed by Aimard, the violinist Joseph Puglia and the hornist Marie-Luise Neunecker. For her, in 1999, he also composed his Hamburg Concerto.

Caribbean rhythm

In the 1980s, Ligeti became increasingly captivated by Caribbean, African and Arabic rhythms. Their 'limping' character gave his work a new spontaneity and vibrancy. Seeing little in the new tonality of the younger generation, he designed new scales and moods.

In 1993, he completed his Violin Concerto, in which he sometimes makes the brass play overtones. He also deploys instruments with unsteady intonation, such as ocarinas and slide flutes. It becomes 5 April performed by Joseph Puglia with the Asko|Schönberg conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw.

Even in his later works, Ligeti continued to experiment with overtones and divergent scales. As in the above-mentioned horn concerto, in which the soloist is 'shadowed' by four natural horns. These have a different sound with a different overtone spectrum, so the score is teeming with microtones.

Pure 'fake' piano

Incidentally, Ligeti did not like using this term. After all, that assumes tempered tuning as we know it from the piano. Wrong, thought Ligeti. The natural third sounds slightly lower than the tempered one; on the contrary, the so-called pure piano is false and microtonal'.

It's a pity he couldn't attend his festival himself; he died in 2006. But his sparkling spirit speaks from all his pieces.

More information and maps here.

I spoke to György Ligeti in 2000 about the Horn Concerto and Sippal dobbal. To be heard on YouTube