illustrations for 'Le Grand Macabre'
the 1978 comic opera by György Ligeti
(based on ‘La Ballade du Grand Macabre’
by Belgian playwright Michel de Ghelderode)

the drama’s setting is Brueghelland ~
so naturally I based my images on paintings
by Flemish Renaissance artist Pieter Brueghel

(left) Piet the Pot, the village drunkard
ink drawing (after Breughel’s painting
‘The Peasant and the Nest Robber’)


(right) 'Dies Irae, Dies Illa …’
the figure of death Nekrotzar, with Piet ~
(after ‘The Misanthrope’ of 1568)

published in BBC Music magazine

(A4 / A3 ink drawings, 2003)