Austrian Composer Gyorgy Ligeti; Worked on '2001: A Space Odyssey'

VIENNA -- Composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who survived the Holocaust and fled Hungary after the 1956 revolution, then won acclaim for his opera "Le Grand Macabre" and his work on the soundtrack for "2001: A Space Odyssey," died June 12. He was 83.

Mr. Ligeti, celebrated as one of the world's leading 20th-century musical pioneers, died in Vienna after a long illness, said Christiane Krauscheid, a spokeswoman for his publisher, Germany-based Schott Music. Details were unavailable, but Austrian media said he had used a wheelchair for the past three years.

Mr. Ligeti (pronounced LIG-ih-tee) was born in 1923 to Hungarian parents in the predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Romania's Transylvania region. His father and brother later were slain by the Nazis. He took Austrian citizenship in 1967 after fleeing his ex-communist homeland.

He began studying music under Ferenc Farkas at the conservatory in Cluj, Romania, in 1941, and continued his studies in Budapest. But in 1943, he was arrested as a Jew and sentenced to forced labor for the rest of World War II.

"My life in the Nazi era and under communist rule was full of risks, and I believe I still reflect this feeling," he once told the Austria Press Agency.

After the war, Mr. Ligeti resumed his studies with Farkas and Sandor Veress at Budapest's Franz Liszt Academy. After graduation in 1949, he did research on Romanian folk music and then returned to the academy as an instructor in harmony, counterpoint and formal analysis.

Mr. Ligeti attracted wide attention for "Macabre," which he wrote in 1978.

His early work was heavily censored by Hungary's repressive regime, but his arrival in Vienna in 1956 opened up new possibilities. He won early critical acclaim for his 1958 electronic composition "Artikulation" and the orchestral "Apparitions." He gained notoriety for a technique he called "micropolyphony," which wove together musical color and texture in ways that transcended the traditional borders of melody, harmony and rhythm.

Mr. Ligeti spoke at least six languages, including his native Hungarian, German, French and English, said Stephen Ferguson, who worked as his assistant and editor at Schott Music from 1992 to 1996.

"He was one of the few avant-garde composers who found his way into the modern program," Ferguson said. "He was fascinated by patterns, but at the same time created wonderful atmospheres, such as in the music used in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' or in 'Clocks and Clouds.'

"He reintroduced techniques of polyphony out of the tradition of Bach and Palestrina with a playful and innovative sense of sound. He developed a new sound -- cluster sound -- which fascinated director Stanley Kubrick and propelled Ligeti to the top of the great composers of the second half of the 20th century."

Kubrick returned to Ligeti in 1999, using the composer's Musica Ricercata II, as the theme for what turned out to be Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut."

Survivors include his wife, Vera, and a son, Lukas, a percussionist who lives in New York.

Associated Press writer Melissa Eddy in Berlin contributed to this report.