interview with Ligeti
I just ran into this 1974 interview with György Ligeti (one of the composers I admire deeply). The interesting thing about it is how he discusses his composition process. He develops his mental image first before notating any of it even at the sketch level.
Check it out:
I can tell you why I am not interested first and foremost the methods. This comes from the custom of performing concerts in my own imagination, and therefore it is for me so primary and important the piece as it will really sound. So I imagine the piece–not generally, but as sound going from the beginning to the end. It will change very much when it is written, but that is always the first thing. And I have to listen to it ten times, perhaps 100 times, this imagination, repeat it always.
Then comes the real construction of the score, which is according to this imagination, but there is always a feedback. When I am beginning to write the piece, I find that I have always to change my first imagination. The final piece is absolutely not the same as my first imagination. I make certain plans, but the piece is never fitting these plans. In any case the next step is always to have a drawing–no notes. I am never writing directly scores. They are very similar to what is called graphic notation, but I did that only one time, in Volumina, my organ piece. I make drawings and colors which have meanings only for me–a scenario with cue words… which kind of texture–only to help me.
Yeah! the rest of the interview is pretty cool too, but this is what delights me. He is affirming the whole idea I had posted about earlier about a mental representation of music. He manipulates that extensively before committing anything to paper, even a sketch.
I don’t have any Ligeti on CD to play you (my LPs are bagged, boxed and filed for long-term storage), sorry. But check out Lontano and of course Atmospheres. You can play some clips of both on Amazon.
