The Widow in the Old House or The Elevator is Out of Order

Abstract

On several occasions, Ligeti spoke about an early literary memory that he credited with the origins of his meccanico style. He recalled reading a short story by Gyula Krúdy (1878–1933) at the age of five, in which Krúdy supposedly wrote about a widow who lived in an old house filled with constantly ticking clocks. To date, the best Krúdy experts have been unable to identify the story in question, and it is reasonable to assume that in Ligeti's mind, actual elements from the writer's work were freely recombined and reimagined at a time when the compositions partly inspired by the Krúdy experience had already been written. Ligeti's published interviews contain references to Krúdy that go beyond the story with the clocks, it may be assumed that the writer's influence on the composer goes deeper than what has been acknowledged so far.In addition, there is an aspect of Ligeti's recollection of the Krúdy story that has not received all the attention it deserves. In his conversations with Péter Várnai, the composer spoke of machines that were working or not working (emphasis mine), and elevators stopping at the wrong floor, or not starting at all. Some of the meccanico works are worth revisiting in search of such “malfunctions” as we try to reimagine the old house where not all the clocks might have been running like clockwork.