Composition database

This is the Composition Database of BMC, which includes information about works by composers that are either Hungarian or Hungarian by origin or live in Hungary.

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Title of the work

Mysteries of the Macabre - für Koloratursopran und Klavier

Composer
Ligeti György
Original / Hungarian title
Mysteries of the Macabre - für Koloratursopran und Klavier
Foreign language / English title
Mysteries of the Macabre - für Koloratursopran und Klavier
Subtitle
Drei Arien aus der Oper "Le Grand Macabre"
Dedication
Elgar Howarth und Håkan Hardenberger gewidmet
Year of composition
1977
Type
Solo voice(s) with solo instrument(s)
Number of players
2
Instrumentation
S. color., pf.
Duration
8 min
Text
MESCHKE, Michael - LIGETI, György
Publisher / Source
Schott Music, ED 8843
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Remarks, other info
Three arias from the opera "Le Grand Macabre"

Composed: 1974-1977, revised 1988

Arranged by Elgar Howarth

German text by Michael Meschke and György Ligeti freely adapted from Michel de Ghelderode´s "La Ballade du Grand Macabre"

"I composed my opera Le Grand Macabre from 1974 to 1977. The Mysteries of the Macabre are arrangements of three coloratura arias of the chief of the "Secret Political Police" which have been arranged (beautifully!) for chamber ensemble by Elgar Howarth. My friend Howarth had conducted the world premiere of the opera in Stockholm in 1978 and some of the further productions. The half-nonsense text is an immediate – however more accurate – continuation of the idea of my works Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures, but there is no chromatics in the music any more."