Let’s all take a moment to remember Gyorgy Ligeti, the influential Romanian composer who passed away at the age of 83. It’s hard to forget his composition, “Atmospheres” which Stanley Kubrick used in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He composed dramatic orchestral works full of blasts of color and sonic exuberance, but his main influence was from his more textural works and explorations in what he called “micropolyphony.” He created massive clouds of sound and clusters that were like the heavens opening. No doubt his time in a concentration camp influenced his music much like Messiaen was influenced by his wartime internment. As part of the post-WWII avant-garde, Ligeti was a contemporary of Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry. You can hear his influence in Tangerine Dream’s Zeit 
and the more abstract works of Steve Roach including The Magnificent Void
.
Comment posted by
at 3/27/2007 6:17:04 AM
ligeti was in fact hungarian who happened to born in romania…