Jozef Sixta

"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.)