Ligeti's Autobiographies

Abstract

Like his fellow members of the Western European musical avantgarde of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, Ligeti often expressed himself in articles or lectures on theoretical and analytical topics. Unlike his contemporaries, however, he also wrote on matters autobiographical. Though his first self-examination, dating from 1971, is still concerned overwhelmingly with compositional theory, from the end of that decade he returned several times to personal experiences, especially those of his childhood years and early adulthood. These seemed to become important again now that the musical climate was turning from a hard objectivity that held the composer's personality to be almost irrelevant towards a fuzzier view of how composers could not but be subjectively engaged in their work. At the same time, in their variety of approach, Ligeti's autobiographical writings refuse to tell a single story.