György Ligeti ‐ illusions et allusions∗

Abstract The interview traces the background to L. ‘s opera ‘Le Grand Macabre’ (1977) through the whole of his carreer, to a fundamental eschatological concern. It retraces its genesis and discloses sources of inspiration in literature and formal analogies to cinematography and the arts. Drawing a parallel with ‘Three Pieces for Two Pianos’ (1976), it focuses on time neutralization and quotation techniques and the problems of synaesthetics and of acoustical illusion.