Editing György Ligeti (section)

===Compositions in Hungary===
Many of Ligeti's earliest works were written for chorus and included settings of folk songs. His largest work in this period was a graduation composition for the [[Budapest Academy of Music|Budapest Academy]], entitled ''Cantata for Youth Festival'', for four vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra. One of his earliest pieces now in the repertoire is his [[Sonata for Solo Cello (Ligeti)|''Cello Sonata'']], a work in two contrasting movements that were written in 1948 and 1953. It was initially banned by the Soviet-run [[Composer's Union]] and was not performed publicly for a quarter of a century.{{sfn|Steinitz|2003|loc=52}}

Ligeti's earliest works are often an extension of the musical language of [[Béla Bartók]]. Even his piano cycle ''[[Musica ricercata]]'' (1953), though written according to Ligeti with a "Cartesian" approach, in which he "regarded all the music I knew and loved as being... irrelevant",{{sfn|Steinitz|2003|loc=54}} the piece has been described by one biographer as from a world very close to Bartók's set of piano works, ''[[Mikrokosmos (Bartók)|Mikrokosmos]]''.{{sfn|Toop|1999|loc=38}} Ligeti's set comprises eleven pieces in all. The work is based on a simple restriction: the first piece uses exclusively one pitch A, heard in multiple [[octave]]s, and only at the very end of the piece is a second note, D, heard. The second piece uses three notes (E{{music|sharp}}, F{{music|sharp}}, and G), the third piece uses four, and so on, so that in the final piece all twelve notes of the [[chromatic scale]] are present.

Shortly after its composition, Ligeti arranged six of the movements of ''Musica ricercata'' for [[wind quintet]] under the title 'Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet'. The Bagatelles were performed first in 1956, but not in their entirety: the last movement was censored by the Soviets for being too 'dangerous'.{{sfn|Steinitz|2003|loc=60}}

Because of Soviet censorship, his most daring works from this period, including ''Musica ricercata'' and his [[String Quartet No. 1 (Ligeti)|String Quartet No. 1 ''Métamorphoses nocturnes'']] (1953–1954), were written for the 'bottom drawer'. Composed of a single movement divided into seventeen contrasting sections linked [[Motif (music)|motivically]],{{sfn|Steinitz|2003|loc=63–64}} the First String Quartet is Ligeti's first work to suggest a personal style of composition. The string quartet was not performed until 1958, after he had fled Hungary for Vienna.{{sfn|Steinitz|2003|loc=75}}