Today I read with great sadness in the New York Times online that Gyorgy Ligeti died. If you glance at what I've been listening to, or even search under his name in my blog, you'll see that I'm a big admirer of the late Mr. Ligeti. His passing means that I'll make a little extra effort to round out my collection of recordings of his works--especially the Horn Trio mentioned in the obituaries I read (I checked the Los Angeles Times online for a second view).

Like many admirers of Mr. Ligeti, I first heard him on the soundtrack for "2001: A Space Oddysey." As the years have gone by and my interest in the high Modernist movement's composers like Mr. Ligeti, I grew to see him as the most talented and musical amongst his peers (think Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio). Where the others had a tendency to be rather doctrinaire, it was clear that Mr. Ligeti felt free to make and break any rule.

A holocaust survivor who later escaped the Stalinists of communist Hungary, Mr. Ligeti expressed a view of rules and orthodoxies that I respond to on a very deep level. Perhaps we all learn different lessons during childhood but for me, I learned that authority and rules are frequently arbitrary and absurd. When I view a biography and life like Mr. Ligeti's, I see that view reflected in its stages and the works he created. I also see a response that I favor, to embrace the absurdity and pick and choose the "rules" created by other composers. That's a kind of real freedom to me.

CDs listened to today:

• Lauryn Hill: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
• Luciano Berio: Notturno
• Antonin Dvorak: Concerto for Cello
• Marvelous3: Hey!Album
• Nine Inch Nails: With Teeth
• Gyorgy Ligeti: Three Pieces for Two Pianos