György Ligeti Edition 4: Vocal Works (Madrigals, Mysteries, Aventures, Songs) - The King's Singers / Philharmonia Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen

Gyorgy Ligeti (Artist), Esa-Pekka Salonen (Artist), Rosemary Hardy (Artist), Christiane Oelze (Artist), The King's Singers (Artist), Philharmonia Orchestra (Artist), Philip Lawson (Artist), Bruce Russell (Artist), Sibylle Ehlert (Artist), Phyllis Bryn-Julson (Artist), Omar Ebrahim (Artist), Irina Kataeva (Artist), David Hurley (Artist), Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Artist), Stephen Connolly (Artist), Malena Ernman (Artist), Eva Wedin (Artist), Robert Chilcott (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 21, 1997)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000029P3
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #65,408 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #30 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Vocal Non-Opera > Songs & Lieder > Madrigals

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Rejoice! The world-premiere recordings of six Ligeti works are cause for celebration. Three of the pieces are recent (1988-93), and three were written during Ligeti's youth in Hungary. In the liner notes, Ligeti movingly describes the artistic climate under the Communist regime. One of the highlights, the third of six Nonsense Madrigals is a beautiful setting of the English alphabet. The other premieres are Mysteries of the Macabre sung by the brilliant Sibylle Ehlert, and a Hölderlin poem arranged for soprano and piano. The earlier premieres are settings of Hungarian poets, for one or three voices and piano. This is a stunning set, encompassing Ligeti's adventurous, polyphonic side and ample heartfelt poignance as well. --Robert Regile

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars innovative introspective imaganitive, August 24, 2000

By 

slightlykooky - See all my reviews

This review is from: György Ligeti Edition 4: Vocal Works (Madrigals, Mysteries, Aventures, Songs) - The King's Singers / Philharmonia Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen (Audio CD)

All of the 'I' words you can think of. I do own the entire set, but this disc in particular in my favorite. Although the series gives you Ligeti as a whole, each disc focuses the listener on a particular genre and Ligeti's thinking in that particular decade. On this disc, more than any other in the series, I think you can hear a progression of his interest in writing for the voice. From the early Bartok-inspired folk pieces to the atmospheric and phonetic-only 'Adventures' and its followup companion, 'Nouvelles Adventures' one can hear a composer finding their own voice. This progression continues through to the 'Nonsense Madrigals' which is the pinnacle of Ligeti's compositional voice. In these pieces, one sees references to the past (via the use of madrigal form), but a distillation of his compositional style: non-tonal but using the total chromatic harmonically, and a dark sense of humor and wit. He's always looking ahead, but never loses sight of the past, much in the way Stravinsky was able to 'evolve' over his different compositional periods. The King Singers give an AMAZING performance of the Madrigals, really capturing the wit and dark humor, especially in the Lobster Quadrille and the Cuckoo in the Pear Tree!

Ligeti is one of those composers who has the ability to balance the Dionysian with the Apollonian. It is 'thinky' music, but never forgets that music has the power to move (even if it is dark!)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars where's the dead weight?, December 7, 2004

By 

Lord Chimp (Monkey World) - See all my reviews

This review is from: György Ligeti Edition 4: Vocal Works (Madrigals, Mysteries, Aventures, Songs) - The King's Singers / Philharmonia Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen (Audio CD)

This is an amazing disc, one of the best in Sony's monumental Ligeti Edition series.

On Sony's Ligeti Edition 4, the _Nonsense Madrigals_ were premiered. These six pieces for six voices, composed in the late-80s/early-90s, are some of the composer's finest offerings. Writes Ligeti, "They are virtuosic works in which I have tried to create a non-tonal but diatonic harmony as well as rhythmic labyrinths." The songs set different pieces of strange poetry against each other in tightly meshed counterpoint, with humorous melodic lines and overwhelming musical imagination. Ligeti also colors the arrangement with nonsense phonetic sounds.

_Mysteries of the Macabre_ takes the three arias of the Chief of the Secret Police from Ligeti's wonderful opera (_Le Grand Macabre_) and rearranges them. This has been called the most difficult music ever written from coloratura soprano, but you wouldn't know it listening to Sibylle Ehlert. Amazing!

Contrary to another reviewer, I think the harsher, earlier avant-garde vocal works (_Aventures_ and _Nouvelles Aventures_) have aged very well. They are comprised of meaningless vocal sounds with chamber orchestra accompaniment. Their pure chromaticism was something Ligeti would later abandon, but even with the prevailing seriousness of the Darmstadt school, these pieces are quite witty and amusing and consistent with Ligeti's goal of composing idiomatically for instruments (including voice), given that the music is pretty much atonal.

This disc also features pieces for one or three voices and piano from Ligeti's early Hungarian days. Because of stifling artistic conditions under Communist rule, the pieces are consonant and accessible.

I assure you that there is no other avant-garde vocal music like Ligeti's. Very highly recommended!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hugely enjoyable and varied collection, November 28, 2008

By 

G.D. (Norway) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: György Ligeti Edition 4: Vocal Works (Madrigals, Mysteries, Aventures, Songs) - The King's Singers / Philharmonia Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen (Audio CD)

Apart from the Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures from the sixties, these are lesser known works, and indeed several of them are early folk-song based works which does not display Ligeti's personal style at all. The highlight is undoubtedly the hugely enjoyable Nonsense Madrigals written in a "diatonic but non-tonal" style and ranging from the intensely beautiful to the hilariously funny. Nonsense vocal sounds are also the basis for the classic Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures, souvenirs from Ligeti's avant-garde experiments of the sixties and for better of worse very much of that age. The conservative early pieces are not particularly memorable. All in all, this is a collection that spans the whole of Ligeti's output and as such gives a nice overview of his stylistic evolution. Yet, I would recommend those unfamiliar with Ligeti to start somewhere else, e.g. with the piano etudes or the orchestral pieces from the sixties (Atmospheres, for instance).

The performances are stunning, and special credit must go to Sibylle Ehlert who tackles the most insanely difficult passages without flinching.