San Francisco Polyphony

György Ligeti composed this work for the 60th anniversary of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. From a compositional aspect, San Francisco Polyphony stands at the end of a stylistic development beginning with Atmosphères (1961), continuing with Lontano (1967), the Wind Quintet (1968) and Melodies for Orchestra (1971) and culminating with the San Francisco Polyphony. 'My music from the late 1950s was primarily based on micro-polyphony, i.e. the technique of the close and intense amalgamation of instrumental voices (and vocal lines), whereas from around the middle of the 1960s, I began to strive towards the direction of a polyphony which was more transparent, more clearly defined and more slender and brittle.' (György Ligeti)