Subject: Interview with Ligeti and bljanka...
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 13:34:37 +0200 (CEST)

All the time I was reading some interviews with Ligeti. He is still alive,
and he will really become 80. And I found out that he lives in Hamburg and
in Vienna, and has Austrian Nationality, though comes from Hungary, and
actually he's Jewish... :)

And in the interview he speaks so happitoshka and unpretending, it's
really funnny.

Anyway, do you know some things which he said? So, he wanted to study
Physics and Mathematics but wasn't accepted to University because he was
Jewish (!) so he went to the Conservatory and the director was so amazing
that he didn't care about the anti-Jewish law, so he was accepted...

And then he spoke about styles of contemporary music that I found
interesting: there's one direction starting from Wagner, then Schoenberg,
Berg & Webern, which is very far from the people and very elitist etc. and
another one like Stravinsky, Bartok, who used popular/folk/traditional
elements (like Hungarian, Arabic, Turkish, etc.) as well. Ligeti says that
he's one of them, and that he was especially inspired by African, Asian,
Latin American folk music. He also said "...[I hate the thinking] that who
is popular, sold himself to commerce. I am absolutely against world
commerce, but the arrogance of unpopularity, it's being a necessary
criterium for good music, I find ridiculous." (the interview is in German
so you can't read it whole, but maybe there's a translation also
somewhere. There are also books about him, that I've seen)

Then it was written that his music is used in the movie "Odyssey 2001"
(very very very very famous, I've never seen it) which is by that same
director Kubrick who also made A Clockwork Orange. And then Ligeti said
something like "Kubrick used my music without my knowledge, without every
asking me, without paying me. I never met him. But of course I generally
don't mind. I am a very big admirer of Kubrick, and apparently he was an
admirer of me, only I didn't know that."

Ah! And then he was asked about some manuscript, where he apparently wrote
stuff in English, German and French mixed together. He said "ah yes,
normally I write Hungarian, but sometimes I like Italian phrases, or
French words. I know many languages, and I use whatever is inside my
pencil." :) :) :)

"But how do you dream?"

"I dream in Hungarian. And I count in Hungarian."

Anyway, it was very very intetersing for me...

I think maybe we can buy some more books and read about Ligeti or other
composers, it's so amazing...

Anyway, I am very very happy we will go to this amazing amazing concerts
in Koeln!!!! Hurray Hurray Hurray!!!!!!

Uraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

-MUnjaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa