Composer Of The Week

Kate Molleson explores the life of György Ligeti with guest, Danny DriverKnown to millions through the film director Stanley Kubrick's use of his music in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ligeti's music reflects the seismic events taking place in central Europe in the mid-twentieth century - shifting borders, war, totalitarianism and for many, exile. These harrowing experiences all made a deep imprint on him and his music. He was born in 1923 into a Jewish Hungarian family in an area that had become part of Romanian Transylvania. After years of state repression, in 1956 at the onset of the Hungarian revolution, Ligeti made a dramatic escape on foot to the West. Freed from state intervention, he was to remain artistically and personally independent from any particular orthodoxies for the rest of his life. He died in 2006 at the age of 83.Ligeti regarded the whole world as the material for his music. He was fascinated by anything and everything: philosophy, science, the arts, literature - Alice in Wonderland was one of