How would you categorize Ligeti

[pies]

I'm writing an article on Ligeti and I was wondering what would be the proper musical category to put his works in. Modern classical? Avant garde/experimental?

[pianistimo]

he seems hard to classify as one thing or another.  he was a constant metamorphosis - as his compositions show.  i'm no ligeti expert, but i've read a little on-line stuff and it looks like he started out with the examples of bartok and kodaly (since he himself was from hungary) and began to experiment with sound.  one of the best things written about him, is that 'he never stretched the audience patience...' or something like that.  he knew their concentration levels and sustained listening power.  that's kind of a nice compliment for a composer.  he was into 'micropolyphony' or complexes of musical color and texture 'so rich and intense that they dissolved the distinctions of melody harmony and rhythm...'  in the 70's he did a bit of experimenting with melody with Melodian.  this was 'a step ahead of the listener's ear...'  then when john cage wrote his 4'33"  he wrote 0'0''  (funny, huh! the shortest piece ever written).  he became a bit cynical and downright obstinant for a while (writing a 'lecture' ) - but then started using a little bit of speech in his music.  in 1980's he got into polyrhythmic techniques. 

[I Love Xenakis]

When he started out composing he did a lot of electronic music, so you would have classified him as a composer in Musique Concrete, but now you would just classify him as 20th/21st century.  He's not avant-garde or post-serialist or new complexity or spectral or anything like that.