Gyorgy Ligeti Quotes & Sayings

Gesualdo was very important to me, I wanted to do something which corresponded to him. — Gyorgy Ligeti

Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I only want to give a metaphysic for my music. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I was fifteen years old, and I hardly knew how to play a simple Bach prelude on the piano when I began to compose music, and at the most advanced level. I had never studied such things as harmony. — Gyorgy Ligeti

In my piano concerto I developed this polyphony to much higher complexity. — Gyorgy Ligeti

My grandfather was not a musician but he was an artist - a painter, a decorative painter. — Gyorgy Ligeti

However, I began composing as soon as I started taking piano lessons. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided. — Gyorgy Ligeti

When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I don't read such boring things. Life is too short. — Gyorgy Ligeti

Steinberg is great. I should like to meet him. — Gyorgy Ligeti

First of all I listen to music. I like music. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I like to stay home and listen to recordings. — Gyorgy Ligeti

Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, it's not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape. — Gyorgy Ligeti

Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully. — Gyorgy Ligeti

People often thought Leopold Auer was Russian because he lived in St. Petersburg so long, almost fifty years. — Gyorgy Ligeti

If you come from Paris to Budapest you think you are in Moscow. — Gyorgy Ligeti

Yes, fractals are what I want to find in my music. — Gyorgy Ligeti

There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I think a composer is always interested in his last work. — Gyorgy Ligeti

New York is the dream world, the center of jazz and rock. — Gyorgy Ligeti

But I do not want to use Hungarian verses for British people. — Gyorgy Ligeti

It isn't false modesty when I say this, but although I am supposed to be a famous person it doesn't mean anything to me. I just sit at home and work. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists. — Gyorgy Ligeti

Well I live in Vienna with my wife and son, and I teach in Hamburg, there will be no changes in that respect. — Gyorgy Ligeti

Perhaps the better word is emotional yes, I am an emotional man. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I listen to all kinds of music - new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything. — Gyorgy Ligeti

But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris. — Gyorgy Ligeti

In January 1944 I was called up by the Forced Labor Service, but I deserted on October 10, 1944. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I write bars, for the musicians, because they have to be together. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I think it was when I was nineteen, by that time the Jewish laws were already in force and the split was beginning to come about which isolated the Jewish culture. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I don't use old music. — Gyorgy Ligeti

I continued to study Math and Physics on my own, but one and a half years later I realized that I did want to be a composer, and after that I never changed my mind. — Gyorgy Ligeti

For the past ten years I have had no financial problems. — Gyorgy Ligeti

Then, after the war it was impossible to travel, after so many years of Hitler and Stalin. — Gyorgy Ligeti