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The Prizewinners of 2004 B. B.
King and György Ligeti |
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B. B. King |
György Ligeti |
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Citations |
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POLAR MUSIC PRIZE LAUREATE 2004 RILEY B KING CITATION |
POLAR MUSIC PRIZE LAUREATE 2004 GYÖRGY LIGETI CITATION |
| The Polar
Music Prize for 2004 is being awarded to the American composer, singer and
performer Riley B King for his significant contributions to the blues. King’s total dedication to his music, a rich recording history and tireless touring lasting more than half a century have made him one of the most prominent figures within the blues. Through his achievements in spreading the blues throughout the world, he has, as a leading proponent of his music, proved of fundamental importance to the development of modern popular music. B. B.King is known as "the King of the Blues" and for half a century has been one of the absolute foremost figures in his music genre. King has lifted the blues from the confines of the American South and brought it to a huge audience the world over. King has behind him an extensive recording history. He made his breakthrough in 1951 with "Three O’clock Blues" and showed he was here to stay by following it up with his "Everyday I Have the Blues" and "Sweet Little Angel", which even went on to become King’s signature tune. The "Live at the Regal" album from 1962 is considered by many critics to be one of the best blues recordings ever. More recently B.B.King has enjoyed wide public attention once again after teaming up with U2 on the album "Rattle and Hum" and Eric Clapton on "Riding with the King". King has managed to combine all this with an untiring enthusiasm for touring. In the 1950s, he made between 250 and 340 appearances a year, and continues to tour heavily to this day; although at the age of 78, he’s cut down a little - to 200 appearances a year. King has developed a characteristic personal style that has influenced the entire world of modern rock music. He plays his guitar - "Lucille", as he has affectionately called it - as if it were an extension of the song, and with his fastidious note-bending he intensifies the entire emotional impact of his music. A trained ear can pick out traces of his blues forebears, such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf and Lonnie Johnson, to name but a few. B. B.King in turn has influenced nearly every successive blues - and rock - artist from Chuck Berry and Bo Didley to Prince and Eric Clapton. As a guitarist he has been of particular importance to the development of contemporary white rock: Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Billy Gibbons and Keith Richards have all had B. B.King as a vital common denominator and source of inspiration. Riley B King was born 16 September 1925 on a plantation in the Berclair community near the small town of Itta Bena, Mississippi, USA. Previous tributes include 13 Grammies, acceptance into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame and Guitar Player magazine’s Blues Guitarist of the Year Award, which he won five times in succession. |
The Polar
Music Prize for 2004 is being awarded to the Hungarian-born composer György
Ligeti for stretching the boundaries of the musically conceivable, from
mind-expanding sounds to new astounding processes, in a thoroughly personal
style that embodies both inquisitiveness and imagination. György Ligeti fled from Hungary in 1956, assimilating with astonishing speed the compositional techniques of the Western European avant-garde, of which he had previously been totally unaware. So it was not until he was 30 that he was able to realise the music that had been in his head for many years. His breakthrough came with his dense clusters, which shift imperceptibly between noise and harmony. The new sounds made on the old instruments have influenced composers all over the world. He first made his international name with Atmosphéres, an orchestral piece from 1961, and his typically evocative music became ensconced in the public consciousness when Stanley Kubrick used part of the work in his film "2001 – A Space Odyssey”. Other favourite images include the out-of-control clockwork machinery, and dangling spider-webs that become increasingly entangled (Chamber Concerto, 1968). His imaginary miniature operas without words but with expressive vocal sequences in phonetic script are like compressed strip cartoons (Aventures, 1962 and Nouvelles Aventures, 1965). The richness of Ligeti’s music lies in the breadth of his imagination, for he is equally comfortable with black humour as he is with thought-provoking incidents. (Particularly fascinating is Poeme Symphonique for 100 metronomes). All this is collected in his largest work, the opera Le Grand Macabre, which had its original premiere in Stockholm in 1978. It is one of the most frequently played operas of our times, and opens with an overture for 12 car horns, and closes with a painfully beautiful passacaglia, played after Death itself has died at Armageddon and everyone else seems to have survived... In the 1980s Ligeti renewed his tonal idiom, basing it now on parallel tone patterns of different tempi (polymetrics). This gave him the impetus to create great illusory works out of musical fractals to confuse the listener into not being sure whether the music is fast or slow. He is also capable of rhythmic orgies as though "the Balkans lay somewhere between Africa and the Caribbean". Ligeti is inspired by African drum rhythms, American minimalism and Conlon Nancarrow’s music for player piano. His principal work is a large anthology of piano etudes in three volumes, of which No. 18 is the latest. It is a magnificent, multi-faceted series of works that places Ligeti firmly amongst the great piano composers: Chopin, Liszt and Debussy. One of his most powerful works is his Piano Concerto from 1987, which combines virtuosity, nostalgia and rhythmic drive. György Ligeti, who comes from an assimilated Jewish family, survived both Nazism and Stalinism thanks to a string of happy coincidences. He believes in a music that stylises and distils our grand emotions into a tapestry of notes that are both felt, smelt and that distort perspectives. His humanism shuns fashionable pessimism and obscure problemisation. Ligeti’s curiosity about the world is unabated. "Reality is both terrible and wonderful" |
| B. B.
King Web Site: www.bbking.com |
György
Ligeti Web Site: www.gyoergy-ligeti.de |
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