Gyorgy Ligeti

People often thought Leopold Auer was Russian because he lived in St. Petersburg so long, almost fifty years.

I like to stay home and listen to recordings.

But I do not want to use Hungarian verses for British people.

Steinberg is great. I should like to meet him.

Yes, fractals are what I want to find in my music.

For the past ten years I have had no financial problems.

But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris.

I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists.

Perhaps the better word is emotional yes, I am an emotional man.

I write bars, for the musicians, because they have to be together.

Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully.

I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.

Then, after the war it was impossible to travel, after so many years of Hitler and Stalin.

My grandfather was not a musician but he was an artist – a painter, a decorative painter.

Gesualdo was very important to me, I wanted to do something which corresponded to him.

I don’t read such boring things. Life is too short.

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.

There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry.

I only want to give a metaphysic for my music.

If you come from Paris to Budapest you think you are in Moscow.

I listen to all kinds of music – new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything.

In my piano concerto I developed this polyphony to much higher complexity.

I don’t use old music.

Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland.

New York is the dream world, the center of jazz and rock.