The musicologist Marina Lobanova was in personal contact with
György Ligeti (1923–2006). As Ligeti's associative scientist
she cooperated with him in Hamburg from 1993 to 1995
The author shows the evolution of Ligeti's work at the most of his
compositions, from the first Hungarian till the latest period; every
period of this evolution is represented by main ideas and concepts
(such as micropolyphony, problems of temperature, new rhythmic system,
etc.). In a review of the first edition is notes
(“Musikforschung”): "Lobanova is able to make the
structures of Ligeti's music transparent to an often surprisingly high
degree". (Wolfgang Marx)
Ligeti's creativity is discussed in the wide context of musical
avant-garde of the 20th century as well as in that of modern culture as
a whole. A long scientific cooperation with the composer took a chance
to discuss some of problems with him personally; several interviews
with Ligeti are collected in an additional part of the book.
An other review mentions: “An immediate benefit is the vividness
of fifty pages of interviews, conducted at that unrepeatable period of
Post-Cold-War liberation, which are as frank about inflated egos and
hard-hitting about card-carrying politicans and cultural apparatchiks
of all kinds as they are witty, poignant, and revealing about
Ligeti’s self-evaluation.“ (Geoffrey Poole, 2004) This
review ends with the remark (2 years before Ligeti's death): “The
book undoubtly merits an important place in any library representing
serious thinking about contemporary music and, arguably, its greatest
living exponent.“
The first edition of Lobanova’s book was published in 2002 by
Ernst-Kuhn-Verlag, Berlin, which ceased operations around 2014 after
the publisher's death. The book has been out of print for a long time.
It is now available in a second, unrevised edition.
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