
(1923 - 2006)
György Ligeti was born in 1923 as the son of Hungarian-Jewish parents. He studied at the Conservatory in Klausenburg with Ferenc Farkas from 1941 to 1943 and from 1945 to 1949 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest with Sándor Veress, Pál Járdányi and Lajos Bárdos. Following the abatement of the Hungarian Revolution, he left his native country in December 1956 for both political and artistic reasons. During his time as freelancer in the West German Radio studio for electronic music in Cologne (1957-58), he undertook an intense study of the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel and Pierre Boulez. In the 1960s, Ligeti was associate professor at the Summer School for Contemporary Music in Darmstadt and guest professor at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm. He received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Programme in Berlin for 1969-70 and was Composer in Residence at the Stanford University in California in 1972 before being appointed as Professor for Composition at the Hamburg Musikhochschule the following year. The composer made a substantial impact on international contemporary music both as a university professor and as an active member of the music scene and became the musical aesthetic benchmark for a whole generation.
Gyorgy Ligeti Composition Timpani and Percussion Requirements
Atmospheres
No Timpani + 1 percussion
Brushes (in piano)
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Aventure, Nouvelle aventure
Solo percussion
Xylophone, glockenspiel, orchestral bass drum, snare drum, guiro, suspended cymbal, rack and carpet, table and case, sandpaper taped to the floor, sandpaper blocks, resonating box with 4 rubber bands over, cushion, brown paper bags to pop, brown paper, greaseproof paper, tissue paper, newspaper, plastic cup, tin foil, hammer, bottle, tin can, balloons, toy frog, trash can with crockery, cloth to tear
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Double Concerto
No Timpani + 1 percussion
Glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone
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Le Grand Macabre
Timpani + 2 percussion + celeste
2 x whip, claves, 5 temple blocks, castanets, Mahler block and hammer, swanee whistle, police whistle, siren, cuckoo effect, steam whistle, 2 x electric sirens, 2 x flexatones, ratchet, 3 wood blocks, log drum, duck effect, xylophone, marimba, glockenspiel, 4 music boxes, vibraphone, 8 electric door bells, 2 tambourines, tenor drum, parade drum, military drum, 3 bongos, 2 snare drums, conga, 3 crotales, gong, clash cymbals x 2 pairs, guiro x 2, tam tam x 2, maracas, antique cymbals, rin x 2, tubular bells, 4 x suspended cymbals, 2 x orchestral bass drums, wind machine, wooden slats x 6, crockery (to break), sauce pan, starting pistol, sandpaper blocks, large alarm clock with deskbells, metronome, newspaper, 4 tom toms, 2 triangles, 12 car-horns x 2
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Melodica
No Timpani + 2 percussion
Crotale (single F), vibraphone, glockenspiel, xylophone, 3 timpani
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Poeme symphonique
No Timpani + 2 operators
100 pyramid type metronomes
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Requiem
No Timpani + 2 percussion
Orchestral bass drum, whip, tam tam, xylophone, glockenspiel, tambourine
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