Gyorgy Ligeti Quotes

• 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

  Wall, Past, Escaping

  "Ligeti" by Alex Ross, www.therestisnoise.com. June 12, 2000.

  66 Copy quote

• Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Mother, Used, Stravinsky

  49 Copy quote

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

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Travel, War, Years

  45 Copy quote

• Yes, fractals are what I want to find in my music.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Music, Want, Fractals

  87 Copy quote

• 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

  Math, Years, Mind

  11 Copy quote

• First of all I listen to music. I like music.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Firsts, Listening To Music

  8 Copy quote

• I only want to give a metaphysic for my music.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Giving, Want

  9 Copy quote

• I write bars, for the musicians, because they have to be together.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Writing, Together, Musician

  9 Copy quote

• I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Writing, Knows, Decided

  7 Copy quote

• I don't read such boring things. Life is too short.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Life, Boring, Too Short

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Simple, Years, Play

  53 Copy quote

• 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

  Home, Mean, Modesty

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Law, Nineteen

  52 Copy quote

• But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Thinking, Paris, Moscow

  92 Copy quote

• Perhaps the better word is emotional yes, I am an emotional man

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Men, Emotional

  7 Copy quote

• I think a composer is always interested in his last work.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Thinking, Lasts, Composer

  7 Copy quote

• I listen to all kinds of music - new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Kind, Colleagues, New Music

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Son, Wife, Vienna

  64 Copy quote

• When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Budapest, Study, Refugee

  86 Copy quote

• I don't use old music.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Use, Old Music

  4 Copy quote

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

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Book, Wonderland, London

  4 Copy quote

• But I do not want to use Hungarian verses for British people.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  People, Use, Want

  8 Copy quote

• There was a very famous musician in our family. He was a great violinist, an internationally known teacher. He was Leopold Auer.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Teacher, Musician, Very Famous

  4 Copy quote

• I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists.

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Communist, Nazi

  4 Copy quote

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

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  October, January, Labor

  4 Copy quote

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