Name: György Ligeti
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György Ligeti

Birthday Music

On 28 May 2023, the 100th anniversary of György Ligeti's birth, the composer's music was heard in concert halls all over the world - in cities with which his life was closely linked, such as Budapest, Vienna, and Hamburg, as well as in faraway places like Tokyo and Mexico City.

In many places, György Ligeti was the focus of attention: at the Philharmonie Köln, Whitsunday started with a Ligeti children's concert, followed by an afternoon chamber concert with pianist Tamara Stefanovich and others, and an evening with the Gürzenich Orchestra Köln under Matthias Pintscher, at which Tabea Zimmermann interpreted the Sonata for Viola Solo dedicated to her.

At the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, concerts with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, pianist Florian Heinisch, the Noah Quartet, pianist Anton Gerzenberg and with the Amaryllis Quartet are on the programme around the birthday.

At the Moers Festival over the Whitsun weekend, a wide variety of musicians encountered Ligeti's music in a creative way as part of a festival focus, including his son Lukas Ligeti.

The Klangforum Wien under Peter Rundel at the Prague Spring Festival, the London Sinfonietta, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra also celebrated Ligeti's music on 28 May and beyond. A festival is dedicated to him in his birthplace Tarnaveni and in Cluj, where he went to school.

The concerts to mark the 100th anniversary are not limited to Europe: A Ligeti Festival took place at the Seoul Arts Center, at Toppan Hall in Tokyo the motto in two concerts was "Thank you György Ligeti", and in Mexico City the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México played Ligeti's Melodien.

"A restless seeker with great independence and inventiveness"

In the summer of 2023, the Salzburg Festival demonstrated its close affinity with the music of György Ligeti through the concert series Time with Ligeti. Tabea Zimmermann and Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who played a key role in shaping the series, talked about their own relationship with the composer.

The multifaceted exhibition Ligeti Labyrinth, which was conceived by the Budapest Institute of Musicology and the Paul Sacher Foundation, was presented at the Basel Historical Museum until April 2024.

New publication

Composers with very different voices emerged from György Ligeti's composition class in Hamburg. For a joint book, many of them have compiled their memories of the teacher and of the musical issues that were negotiated in the class.

Richly coloured, rhythmically concise, expressively significant

In addition to having recorded all of György Ligeti's works for choir a cappella, the SWR Vokalensemble is offering workshops on the composer's work as part of a major school project and is also touring his music in Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, France and Italy in May and June.

Vienna celebrates György Ligeti's music

The Wiener Konzerthaus dedicated an extensive concert series to its honorary member György Ligeti on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2023.

A new work by György Ligeti?

In any case, an almost unheard new version of Macabre Collage was performed independently by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in February 2023.

Iridescent to unbridled: The Requiem

Hans Memling's Danzig altarpiece of the Last Judgement served György Ligeti as inspiration for the Dies irae from his Requiem, which became one of the most complex polyphonic works in music history. As a summary of his previous work and the nucleus of his new work, the Requiem plays a key role.