Ligeti composed Pletykázó asszonyok in 1952, when he was studying in the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and used a text by Hungarian poet Sándor Weöres.
However, it was not commonly performed and was only published in 1999 by Schott Music as a collection called Két kánon, together with Ha folyóvíz volnék (1947).
These two canons were conceived and written separately, as the 1947 composition was based on slovak tunes translated into Hungarian, unlike Pletykázó asszonyok.
[4] It is a four-part canon scored for a mixed choir which should consist of sopranos, altos, tenors and basses,[1] even though it is typically performed exclusively by women.
The score has only one staff per system, and all four voices should start a bar away from each other, therefore creating tone clusters, a technique thoroughly used and developed by Ligeti throughout his career.