Metamorphosis in Music: The Compositions of György Ligeti in the 1950s and 1960s
ISBN: 9780199382019
Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / Oxford University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Musicology and Music History Music Theory and Analysis;

From the mid-1950s through the 1960s, Hungarian composer Gy#65533;rgy Ligeti went through a remarkable period of stylistic transition, from the emulation of his fellow countryman B#65533;la Bart#65533;k to his own individual style at the forefront of the Western-European avant-garde. Through careful study of the sketches and drafts, as well as analysis of the finished scores, Metamorphosis in Music takes a detailed look at this compositional evolution. Author Benjamin R. Levy includes sketch studies created through transcriptions and reproductions of archival material-much of which has never before been published-providing new, detailed information about Ligeti's creative process and compositional methods. The book examines all of Ligeti's compositions from 1956 to 1970, analyzing little-known and unpublished works in addition to recognized masterpieces such as Atmosph#65533;res, Aventures, the Requieim, and the Chamber Concerto. Discoveries from Ligeti's sketches, prose, and finished scores lead to an enriched appreciation of these already multifaceted works.

Throughout the book, Levy interweaves sketch study with comments from interviews, counterbalancing the composer's own carefully crafted public narrative about his work, and revealing lingering attachments to older forms and insights into the creative process. Metamorphosis in Music is an essential treatment of a central figure of the musical midcentury, who found his place in a generation straddling the divide between the modern and post-modern eras.


Benjamin R. Levy is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes in twentieth-century and contemporary music and has published on composers including Ligeti, Xenakis, and Feldman. He received the Society for Music Theory's Emerging Scholar Award in 2011.

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