Jozef Sixta

Jozef Sixta was a prominent Slovak composer, pianist, and pedagogue, and a representative of the strong generation of composers emerging in the 1960s. His work focused primarily on instrumental music, and his compositions are considered among the most significant expressions of Slovak musical modernism. Through his innovative approaches—such as the use of "intervallic cores"—he is often placed alongside composers like Ligeti and Lutosławski. During his studies, he also completed a residency at the Paris Conservatoire under notable figures such as André Jolivet and Olivier Messiaen, which had a profound impact on his artistic direction. He was known for his modesty, intelligence, musical inventiveness, and refined artistic taste.

"Sixta's work was influenced at first by the traditional method of composition of his professor. After graduation (Symphony No. 1) he began to take an intensive interest in the techniques of New Music, especially aleatoric music, the achievements of the Polish school (String Quartet No. 1; Variations for 13 Instruments; Nonet; Asynchrony) and the rational organisation of the tonal material. His ideal is a synthetic composition which on the one hand takes its departure from a more-or-less traditional evolutionary conception of musical form, while on the other hand employing a selective organisation of the horizontal and vertical component of the tonal space on the basis of reduced interval series. His strict emphasis on compositional integration means that the basic construction principle of musical activity is the canon or imitation. One may therefore regard Sixta’s works as manifestations of the integration of core compositional principles of European music. The composer is attempting a synthesis of Renaissance (imitative texture), classicist (thematic work, evolutionary conception of form) and contemporary methods of integration of the composition (interval selection proceeding from a foundation of tempered dodecaphony). An exclusive subject of professional interest for Sixta is “absolute music”, and his music characteristically avoids any extra-musical associations whatever (absence of vocal music, musical treatment of text, programmatic or inter-choral approach). The register of his works therefore includes only works designed for the solo, chamber and orchestral media."

(GODÁR, Vladimír: Jozef Sixta. In: A Hundred Slovak Composers. Eds. Marián Jurík, Peter Zagar. Bratislava : National Music Centre Slovakia, 1998, p. 255.)