Janos Gereben wrote about Grand Macabre:
>Boder, who will conduct the Oct. 29 premiere, spoke about the "complicated
>score... sounds you never heard in an opera house before... a large
>percussion group, with car horns, paper bags"
Actually Havergal Brian's opera The Tigers calls for a motor horn though
the opera has never been staged. Some circuses used to have an act with
a sea lion playing tunes on motor horns. I wonder Ligeti ever considered
doing this, the lights dim enter sea lion stage left to honk the beginning
of the opera. Perhaps Ligeti was unsure whether a sea lion with sufficient
competence could be found. Would one advertise for a grade one in motor
horn?
Tim Horwood