Life can be full of surprises!
For those of you, who came already in touch with Ligeti’s music, do you recall the very first time, when you listened to his music?
Wasn’t this a real surprise?
Those of you who maybe still haven’t, a surprise may be still waiting for you!
In my early twenties, I came in touch with his music the first time when I wasn’t even able to buy a single record of him as I was still living in Dresden which belonged to the Communist East-Germany at this time, and Western labels weren’t sold. But I was very lucky to have Udo Zimmermann as my composition teacher who was not only allowed to travel to Western Democratic countries (which I wasn’t, of course) but also opened my musical thoughts to the whole of the world by countless musical discussions and many Western records and important music aesthetic literature he brought with him and gave them to me generously as a present.
What I didn’t know: At the same time, he met with Ligeti in Dresden and – while apparently talking about his students and maybe about what drives them to engage with contemporary composition and how important Ligeti’s works themselves may contribute in this process – Ligeti sent his greetings in return – on a napkin, labeled by the East-German HO restaurant cooperative serving in Dresden’s Palace of Culture.
It never reached me – probably due to the heavy scheduled calendar of Udo Zimmermann – until recently, where his widow, Mrs. Saskia Zimmermann, were able to discover it in one of his countless estate boxes – 38 years thereafter!
Luckily great music doesn’t age! And Ligeti’s works definitely belong to those that stay young forever, at least to my ears:
I find it hard to find contemporary music that really knows to tell a story, even so the most extreme sound dialogues you can dream of are being engaged,
A composer who’s inner visions are much stronger than any modernist movement he would follow while always interrogating himself deeply for any new creation he was seeking,
Top clarity in musical structures and the ability to develop them organically to unheard super-melodic sound trips,
and the list goes on.
Sure, there is no end in telling similar stories about wonders created by other artistic heroes on their search for an unheard future of music (including Udo Zimmermann, of course), but for me, Ligeti is the one that gave me personally the earliest and most fundamental inspiration to my own voyage to new musical shores, till this very day.
What is left for me at this point is to pass on Ligeti’s warm greetings as an inspiration to everyone who loves to discover new ways of musical thinking, to listen or listen again to his wonderful creations.
Let me show you an example on how simple this may be begin:
I was growing up as a child living nearby a village church with three bells who always ring in different speeds based on their different sizes. Till today, when I listen to this kind of bell ringing, I’m fascinated by the very different sound figures and motifs that occur as a result of the interference of the different bell ringing speeds.
Ligeti took 100 (sic!) mechanical metronomes with various speeds, initially creating an undistinguishable cloud of sounds that slowly but surely lifts its density as the metronomes would stop one after the other and voilà! – when reaching a small number of them – you would hear the very same effect of the fluid “bell motif creation”.
This tells us the difference of “to listen” and “to hear”:
We hear metronomes clicking and we listen, to what the clicking sounds may have to tell us – many different things indeed – if and when we are able to really listen to it. Then – we may be even surprised, even and maybe especially – if we are listening to it again and again!
Watch The M.C.Escher of Music? by David Bruce
The "Repetition" (REP) algorhythm in Ligeti’s second string quartet, Movement three
György Ligeti in Wikipedia
More thoughts about Ligeti’s ‘Poème Symphonique For 100 Metronomes’ can be found in The Magic E@r, chapter 3.7, “Claveland”
Post scriptum
Today (27-May-22) Mrs. Saskia Zimmermann was also so kind to send me an article about Ligeti's visit to Dresden where I could learn more details about this remarkable day back in 1984:
It was the first time, György Ligeti visited the Communist German Democratic Republic. This is remarkable as he fled the Iron Curtain (Communist Ungarian) back in the 50ties.
The very 23.5.1984 was exactly his 61th birthday.
At this day two of Ligeti's compositions, "Aventures" and "Nouvelles Aventures" for singers and instrumentalists were played for the first time in East Germany.
The concert took place in the "Kleines Haus" of the Dresden State Theater within the framework of the Dresden Music Festival in a concert series called "Studio Neue Musik" that was led by Udo Zimmermann at this time.
Right after the concert, Udo Zimmermann interviewed Ligeti to questions of contemporary music.
For German readers, here is the full article about this concert:
György Ligeti at February, 1st, 1984:
