György Ligeti is a composer whose stance always extended into a multidimensional field. The old and the new in music, or, more generally, artistic and scientific thinking as a whole, were his closest and most inspiring companions and everything new had to be further developed. Yet for him, nothing could be really new without a deep relationship with the old. And the power of the old had to be woven into every new idea. This necessity to subsume what came before into all things new was also his "torture rack". His students in Hamburg experienced this great seeker, this indeed desperate seeker in a most intense way. And he imbued upon us the extreme necessity of taking the next steps, and challenged us to participate and challenged us as, in a great game, to join in the search.
A great many of György Ligeti's students collaborated on this book.
The result is a colorful bouquet of articles, some of which provide astonishing insights into the person, the teacher, the composer György Ligeti, and all in all include many aspects that would scarcely be accessible to a musicologist coming from outside this inner circle.