Thread: Ligeti or Bartok?

After listening to Bartok's String Quartets, I'm starting to change my mind.

Ligeti experienced some real life disturbing horrors. It was bound to come out in his music. But ultimately, I find it too be beautiful stuff. He certainly did it his own way:

"When you are accepted in a club, without willing [and] without noticing you take over certain habits [of thinking] what is in and what is out. Tonality was definitely out. To write melodies, even non-tonal melodies, was absolutely taboo. Periodic rhythm, pulsation, was taboo, not possible. Music has to be a priori. … It worked when it was new, but it became stale. Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, it’s not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape." - Gyorgy Ligeti

Ligeti or Bartok ? I mostly prefer Bartok.

Originally Posted by neoshredder

After listening to Bartok's String Quartets, I'm starting to change my mind.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO