Customer Reviews

György Ligeti Edition 3: Works for Piano (Etudes, Musica Ricercata) - Pierre-Laurent Aimard

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Piano music is the theme of this third volume of Sony's "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition", the attempt (continued by Teldec's "The Ligeti Project") to collect all of the composer's work in new performances overseen by Ligeti himself. This disc contains the first two books of his magisterial "Etudes pour Piano" (with the first piece of Book Three), and his early "Musica Ricercata" set, played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, one of the greatest pianists of contemporary repetoire and Ligeti's hand-picked choice.

The Etudes are the highlight of this disc. Begun in 1985 and with two books completed and one in progress, they are among the greatest contemporary works for that instrument, and while I am a great fan of Ligeti's micropolyphonic music of the 1960's and his various recent concertos, I think that it is the Etudes that will come to be seen as his masterpiece. They are incredibly difficult works for the virtuoso pianist, but they are inventive music as well. In Etude 1 "Desordre", the notes unravel according to chaos theory. In Etude 3 "Touchee Bloquees", the pianist plays ascending scales with one hand while the other hand silently presses down keys, creating gaps in the sequence. Etude 4 "Fanfares" and 10 "Der Zauberlehrling" take inspiration from African polyrhythms. Etude 14 "Coloana Infinita" is a musical represenation of Constatin Brancusi's sculpture in Targu Jiu. What I think makes the Etudes particularly fascinating is that some of them, most notably Etude 13 "Le escalier du diable" and 14 "Coloana Infinitia" are meant to be too fast for any human pianist, and their definitive versions are for player piano. For some of these player piano renditions one should seek out "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition 5: Mechanical Music".

Aimard's performance is by far the best, and sits alongside Frederik Ullen's as one of the only reliable performances. Aimard is not as fast as Ullen, but he does have consistent pacing and avoids the muddled sound that is the downside of Ullen's disc. The only point where I can totally favour Ullen to Aimard is in Etude 14 "Coloana Infinita", where Ullen's performance seems closer to the player piano version. There are also performances lesser, but still worth seeking out, by Lucille Chung and Gabor Csalog.

"Musica Ricercata", composed between 1951 and 1953, is the result of Ligeti's early re-evaluation of his compositional technique. It really does start from the ground up, as the first piece contains only two tones (and their octave transpositions), the second piece three tones, and so forth. The menacing second piece, undoubtedly representing Ligeti's black rage at Stalin, may be known to some from its use in Kubrick's film "Eyes Wide Shut". While the music may sound quite conservative, especially in comparison to later Ligeti, "Musica Ricercata" explores enough contemporary ideas that it was not possible to have it performed in communist Hungary. The music appeared first as the "Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet" arrangements.

The liner notes, written by Ligeti himself, are excellent. He talks of his fascination with the piano, and his frustration that he learned the instrument too late in life to be a good pianist himself.

This installment contains works from either side of his micropolyphony phase of the 1960s and 1970s, which is the most publically recognisable. However, it is one of the first discs one should pick up in the "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition" series. Thrilling music, though if you love the Etudes, be sure to pick up at least Ullen's performance (on BIS) for another perspective.

With the Ligeti Edition still in print and new installments of the Ligeti Project being released regularly, it's been a challenge to keep up. (A Ligeti benefactor, Vincent Meyer, has subsidized the gradual production of a complete set of composer-approved new recordings of all his compositions, the Edition/Project, first on Sony and now on Teldec.) I have finally acquired this set of "Works for Piano" performed by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Ligeti's pianist of choice, which includes Etudes 1-15, late works from the 1980s, and the "Musica ricercata," composed from 1951 to 1953 before Ligeti left Hungary. The early work gets better as it goes along, but is not as compelling as the etudes.

In the liner notes, Ligeti details many influences on his etudes, including the music of sub-Saharan Africa and its ethnomusicology, the jazz of Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans, and the pianistic composers Scarlatti, Chopin, Schumann and Debussy. Very interesting, all that, but the sensibility of these pieces seems to me to be more a return to the early 20th century of Debussy and Bartok than anything else -- a postmodern stepping back from Ligeti's signature micropolyphony and subsequent elaborations of the period from the late 1950s to early '70s (for instance, "Atmospheres," "Requiem," "Lux Aeterna," and "String Quartet #2"). It's a turn toward a lighter tone, in contrast to the dark, serious work of the high modern avant-garde, and a new focus on rhythmic complexity. Many of these short works summon up a mood of dreamy fantasy and reverie -- a far cry from Boulez or Xenakis! The Etudes stand beside the "Piano Concerto" (played by Aimard on LIGETI PROJECT 1 -- see my review) and the "Violin Concerto" (played by Zimmerman on LIGETI PROJECT 3 -- see my review) as late Ligeti, 1980s compositions.

Delightful on all levels -- composition, performance and recording.

Usually if you put someone in a hypothetical situation where they would be forced to give up sight or hearing, they choose hearing. Better to be deaf than blind, eh? But I would pick blindness because of music like this. Nothing compares to Ligeti's etudes for solo piano, composed in Ligeti's `later' phase. They are unlike anything else. Ligeti is influenced by everything from Conlon Nancarrow's works for player piano to Indonesian gamelan to African percussion music to the jazz of Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans to fractal geometry to Debussy to Chopin. And despite all these resources from which he draws ideas, the music is purely Ligeti's. They are diverse and intense, often beautiful, and always mind-expanding. They are also nowhere near as grim and dark as Ligeti's earlier avant-garde work, instead sounding quite joyful and pleasurable. There's the dizzying coiling of scales up and down the piano on "Vertige", the impressionistic harmonic structure and jazzy lyricism of "Arc-en-ciel", the simultaneous tempos of "White on White" and "Automne a Varsovie", and also "Desordre" (which shifting chords creating dual tempos), and the jazzy, churning "Fem", et cetera et cetera... all are masterful.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard's performances are outstanding. I also have Ligeti's etudes on BIS with Fredrik Ullen, so I can compare performances like a real classical reviewer. Ullen is sharper and more striking on pieces like "Der Zauberiehrling", "Desordre", and "Vertige". Aimard's pure, liquid grace enables him to better present the rhythmically lush "Automne a Varsovie" and "Galamb borong". Aimard's "Coloana infinita" is also more deliriously crushing and walking pieces like V and XI are a little better. Ullen plays faster for the most part, but Aimard paces them better.

Musique Ricercata is an earlier piano piece composed between 1951 and 1953. It is made up with 11 individual pieces. On the first piece, only two pitches are used. On the second, three pitches are used, and so on, until the eleventh piece uses all 12 pitches. It is Bartokian in spirit, though not entirely in sound. Ligeti, concurrently limiting and expanding his range of tones, often turns to rhythmic ingenuity and irregular meters to craft compositional forms. I like it. Next to the etudes, it is not so alluring but it deserves one's attention.

I recommend that you also buy Conlon Nancarrow's boxed set of studies for player piano. It's a lot to digest, but it is definitely amazing and very worthwhile. Ligeti writes, "From [Nancarrow's studies] I learned rhythmic and metric complexity, entire worlds of rhythmic-melodic subtleties that lay far beyond the limits that we had recognized in `modern music' until then."

I wonder what is the source of the magical inspiration capable of producing this music. Ligeti is a genius of our time. I will not add anything more to the interesting reviews published in this page. Only to say that the music of Ligeti (Grand Macabre, Requiem, Adventures, Concertos,...) offers a unique musical experience for those who love contemporary music. For those who not, Ligeti is, maybe the best great composer to introduce them in the music of our time. From this album (Bravo Aimard!), the Etudes are the outstanding part. "Autumn in Varsovia" (which has the astonishing indication of "Presto cantabile") "Disordre", "Galamb Borong", are pieces which will remembered in the future. Music for the memory and the history of music.

There is another very good recording of these pieces by Fredrik Ullen also available on Amazon. Though which recording is better is probably a matter of personal taste, I prefer Ullen's version "Desordre", and he seems to take slightly more control of the pieces. Ultimately it probably doesn't matter which you buy, however. Book I etudes are very impressive pieces. Book II seems a little less even in quality but the best pieces (Der Zauberlehring, En suspens, Galamb borong) easily match the first book and explore new areas. The Musica Ricercata are interesting small scale pieces, if somewhat less serious than the etudes. He later developed them into pieces for wind instruments and even used one (no. 7) in the second movement of his violin concerto.

The own György Ligeti was asked about who was the pianist more complete in his piano works; he talked about Pierre-Laurent Aimard, whose a close relation with the XXth Century music is very well known (Boulez, Messiaen, Berg, Schönberg, Carter...) all around the world. He talked too about Volker Banfield, who has recorded some of the Etudes for Wergo, but not so good as Aimard recordings, in my opinion.

What we find in this CD, 3rd of an outstanding series, is the technical perfection made piano playing, in the hands of Aimard, who plays absolutely all the notes full of perfection, sense and correction, from the dynamic to the tempo, from the correct attack to the prodigious use of the pedal. If you are used to a romantic piano you can feel this versions a little cold or dry, but this is because Aimard goes directly to the heart of the XXth Century style of piano playing, in the line that comes from Schönberg-Berg-Webern and that goes in a different way of playing than the century before, so you can be lost in some sense about the way he understand the use of the piano, the playing, the technique, the echoes, the silences...

You'll find in this CD the Musica Ricercata, a work from Ligeti's first period, very easy to understand for those who are not used to listen this kind of "modern" music. It has many folk motives, used in a way very close to Bartók's style. One of this pieces (Musica ricercata: II. Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale) was taken by Stanley Kubrick for his last film Eyes Wide Shut, with an outstanding presence in the film associated to the worries and pressure over the main character; Ligeti says about this piece that it was a knife against the stalinist regime because of this style of music, sinister, innovative and forgiven in the communist Europe. The film's version is slower than this by Aimard, more "cinematographic" but slower than the score asks. Aimard's version in this piece and in the full pieces are outstanding.

The rest of the CD it's based on the Etudes, books I & II, both of them complete. Those are pieces much more modern than the Musica Ricercata, some of them, in the words of Ligeti with some links and inspiration on Nancarrow's works. We are listening in this case some of the most complex works for piano written in the XXth Century, and many of them authentic jewels of the genre. The Aimard versions for Sony are the better I know from the French pianist, who have recorded some of them in other CDs, like his great recording from de Carnagie Hall (Warner), but not so good like this outstanding CD.

So, if you are looking for perfection in Ligeti's piano music performances don't doubt about this CD; if you want to discover the piano of the XXth Century this could be a great door to go into, because of the music, because of the performing and because of a perfect recording and booklet.

Ligeti is one of the most interesting contemporary composers. His music is so strong and powerful, and sometimes magical. I have never studied music and I don't even read music, but I can hear how exceptional this music is. It also proves that contemporary music is not just for musicians.

I got Idil Biret's version on Naxos first. Her version of these Etudes is much slower and she does not get Ligeti like Aimard, but I find, surprisingly, that the Naxos piano sound is better than this one on Sony. To my ear there is no upper frequency harmonics on the piano. The piano sound is severely muted.

Aimard gets Ligeti better than Biret with special phrasing here and there. Biret sounds more mechanical, but at the same time more demonic and articulate. Coupled with the weird piano sound of this CD Aimard sounds like a audio "blur." Because the sound lacks focus his interpretation coupled with the sound it is harder to make out what is happening with these pieces and makes it more frustrating to listen to.

I don't know if we are suppose to mention prices or not, but the Sony is a dollar cheaper than the Naxos at least on Amazon. So the Sony is relative bargain, but for what? Underwater piano sound?

I have to chime in at three stars then. I do give Biret which was my first Ligeti Etudes CD at outrageous five star review. I feel in love with the Biret and play it over and over when I first heard it. I guess what they say about classical music and first impressions is true. If so then I am guilty, but I cannot endorse the Aimard anymore than three stars or stand away from the Biret with any less than five. I listen to music for pleasure and I am not a musicologist. Sorry.

Alas, I've never warmed to Ligeti's Piano Etudes, which I generally find to be a dilution of his more remarkable middle period works, or in some cases a pale imitation of the work of other musicians. Compare, for example, the first Etude (Disordre), to Ruth Crawford's Study in Mixed Accents written half a century earlier. Several etudes owe an unabashed debt to Nancarrow, but lack the latter's eccentric sincerity (player pianos, boogie-woogie rhythms and all that). More than a few resemble a Cecil Taylor solo, but with an added dose of pretense. And they all compare unfavorably to Ligeti's own Three Pieces for Two Piano, written in the 1970s while he was still finding ways to extend his musical language in the dimensions of rhythm and texture.

It's also disappointing that the composer of so much timbrally-extended music would give us an hour's worth of short piano pieces without any exploration of extended playing techniques or new instrumental sounds. Everything is played on the keys in the conventional way, ignoring the possibilities opened up by Cage, Crumb, Cowell, Stockhausen and others. Nor is there any exploration of alternative intonation or harmonics. And then there's the fundamental problem of listening to an hour's worth of short pieces that don't particularly combine to form architectonic structures beyond the length of a single movement.

Although I think future composers will share this assessment, contemporary judgment may not. And since these pieces only require a single performer, and are written in a more familiar style than Ligeti's great middle period works, they do seem to get programmed far more often than, say, the Requiem (LP4). If you consider the Etudes to be the finest thing this side of Atmosphères (or for that matter, Stockhausen's Klavierstücke, Crumb's Makrokosmos and Copland's Piano Fantasy), then you certainly won't be disappointed in these performances by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, one of the leading pianists specializing in new music. The accuracy is there, the touch is immaculate, and he avoids burying the wash of notes with the loud pedal. You'll also want to have these Etudes if you're assembling a CD collection of Ligeti's music. As of December 2009, the price is definitely right at seven bucks.

Note, though, that only one of the Etudes from Book 3 was completed at the time of this recording. And neither this CD, nor LE6 gives us the Three Bagatelles for David Tudor (from 1961, consisting of a single note), and a work of juvenilia called Chromatic Fantasy that Ligeti withdrew but is still worth a listen. Unfortunately these aren't present in Teldec's Ligeti Project either, so to assemble a complete Ligeti collection you'll need to supplement the Sony and Teldec series with something like Fredrik Ullén's album of Ligeti's complete piano music.

Rounding out this CD is Ligeti's early Musica Ricercata collection in its original version for solo piano. Some of its movements are banal juvenilia, but others are interesting and show flashes of the insight into musical process that would burst out fully after Ligeti left Hungary. If you acquire all eight Ligeti Edition albums on Sony, and the five CDs of Teldec's Ligeti Project, then you will get a good dose of Musica Ricercata through arrangements of its movements for pipe organ (LE6, quite effective actually), barrel organ (LE5), bayan (LP5) and wind quintet (LE7).

Note that as of March 2010 Sony has made the entire Ligeti Edition series available in an inexpensive nine-CD box set that includes this CD, so you should probably just buy that set instead of this single CD if you're interested in Ligeti's music.

Is it classical? Is it jazz? Or is it something entirely new? Whatever it is, forget about categories and just enjoy. As Beethoven in his last sonata seems to have unconsciously anticipated Scott Joplin, so with these Etudes I get the feeling that I'm hearing a bulletin from the future.

This music is very different from Ligeti's mostly static soundscapes of the 1960s ("Atmospheres," "Lux Aeterna" et al.). The rhythmic complexities are amazing: Ligeti cites the polyphony of African music, the player-piano inventions of Conlon Nancarrow, and the jazz pianism of Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans as influences. The motoric power grabs you right away, and the pieces are so vividly descriptive I almost think I could guess what inspired them without knowing their titles. "Vertige" for instance with its fast and queasy up-and-down motion; "Desordre" with its dense layering and extreme violence; "Galamb Borong" (2 pseudo-Javanese words) which evokes the sound of the gamelan; "L'escalier du Diable", a spiral staircase that goes nowhere fast; "Infinite Column", a 2-minute rocket into the stratosphere.

This recording by Pierre-Laurent Aimard ranks just behind Glenn Gould's second assault on the "Goldberg Variations" as my favorite solo piano record.