György

György Ligeti seems to have consistently slipped past me without being noticed - for half a lifetime. How could I have missed out on knowing about a guy like György? I feel so unobservant, or perhaps so unkulchered. Picture, if you will, Virge ook-ing around a black monolithic artifact in desperate need of an uplift.

This Hungarian seems to have a very quirky history. Let me summarise the mysterious side of György:
* He was born in Transylvania in Discöszentmáton (which sounds to me like a goth nightclub).
* One of his works was banned by Hungarian authorities for being decadent -  liberal use of minor second intervals (I wouldn't want this composer corrupting my children with his sensual semitones).
* He wrote an opera, Le Grande Macabre, a work of absurd theatre.
* He wrote one of the largest cluster chords ever written - every note in the chromatic scale over a range of five octaves played at once.
* One of his piano pieces uses only one note (played in different octaves).
(facts drawn from Wikipedia.org)

Furthermore, I find that this sneaky bugger has had me listen to his music without realising. His music is featured in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (alongside Khachaturian and a couple of unrelated Strausses).

I suppose it's better that I find out now, under controlled conditions - my immediate embarrassment only shared with a friend (who had just purchased a couple of Ligeti CD's) and with you people who are prepared to read my scribbles. It could have been much, much worse. I could have made some outrageous public faux pas like: "And what famous composer ever came from Transylvania, eh? Ho, ho, ho!" Then I'd really look stupid.