A biography for Gyorgy Ligetihasn’t been written yet.
“I think a composer is always interested in his last work.”
“I think it was when I was nineteen, by that time the Jewish laws were already in force and the split was beginning to come about which isolated the Jewish culture.”
“In January 1944 I was called up by the Forced Labor Service, but I deserted on October 10, 1944.”
“In my piano concerto I developed this polyphony to much higher complexity.”
“I like to stay home and listen to recordings.”
“I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.”
“I listen to all kinds of music - new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything.”
“I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists.”
“Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland.”
“But I do not want to use Hungarian verses for British people.”
“First of all I listen to music. I like music.”
“When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee.”
“But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris.”
“People often thought Leopold Auer was Russian because he lived in St. Petersburg so long, almost fifty years.”