Customer Reviews

The Ligeti Project I: Melodien / Chamber Concerto / Piano Concerto / Mysteries of the Macabre - Schönberg Ensemble / ASKO Ensemble / Reinbert de Leeuw

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is great, crazy stuff -- the piano concerto is, as pianist Aimard writes in his enthusiastic booklet notes, "a masterpiece." Endlessly inventive, with multiple layers of rhythmic and harmonic complexity, yet all presented with crystal clear clarity ... the best of what modern music can be. The real pleasure of this disk is that you never really know what you're going to hear from one moment to the next. Continual surprise is the order of the day, and Ligeti is a master of playful suspense, a puckish magician who enjoys playing with your expectations and preconceived notions.

Some would argue this is fairly lightweight when put alongside the formidable likes of Carter or Boulez. I don't think that is the case at all. Ligeti communicates more readily than those two composers, but is no less rewarding upon repeated listens. This is not mere sonic novelty, but an experience that will leave you refreshed and enriched.

I'm looking forward to the other four volumes in what should prove to be a very laudable series. Also check out Volumes 3 and 7 of the Ligeti edition on Sony, featuring his piano etudes (the best since Debussy) and some provocative works for wind ensemble.

The wild and exotic Piano Concerto is performed here by one of Ligeti's favorite pianists, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, a marvel of pianistic talent. (Ligeti has written many of his Piano Etudes with Aimard's talented fingers in mind.) Aimard had previously recorded it under Pierre Boulez on DG, but his performance here is nimbler, and the accompaniment better integrated with the piano.

The Chamber Concerto is one of Ligeti's most popular pieces: it has been recorded several times. The pizzicato-heavy third movement in particular is one of his standout creations, a musical mechanism with both soul and menace; the poetic and heart stopping perpetuum mobile that closes the piece is breathtaking, a brief glimpse into another world. Melodien was recorded only once before this. It revisits territory covered by the Chamber Concerto, but uses a larger ensemble of musicians. It's a Catherine Wheel of melodies, as if dreamt by a gifted, and unusually musical, watchmaker.

My favorite recordings on CD of both Melodien and the Chamber Concerto remain those led by David Atherton, conducting the London Sinfonietta (recorded in the mid-1970s, shortly after the pieces were written). Most recently that CD was available at mid-price on London/Decca, but it is unfortunately out of print. If you come across it in a used record bin consider snapping it up. In the meantime, you have this wonderful program to enjoy for repeated listenings: It is utterly fascinating, web-like music, here comic, there poignant, and always chockfull of surprise.

Ligeti has written more accessible works (String Quartet #1, Horn Trio, Piano Etudes Book 1, Six Bagatelles), but these are delightful pieces that should not be overlooked by people interested in exploring the music of this 20th century master. This is one of the best Ligeti records around.

Thank God for Teldec. Releasing this music is really important. Ligeti is certainly on of the most important living composers and this series will help make all of his works available in composer authorized performances before we loose him.

I love this CD, as I have most of the Teldec and Sony discs. This music is Ligeti at his most inventive and playful. Melodien is another of his one movement pieces for orchestra (actually chamber orchestra) but it marks a shift in style from the cloud pieces of the 60s to pieces of greater melodic weight and density. In this work and in the Chamber Concerto that follows, Ligeti is more motivic, though he treats his motives more often as elements in a sound scape rather than in traditional Beethovenian development. The textures and harmonies are quite beautiful. The inclusion of Harpsichord in the Chamber Concerto is a master stroke.

The Piano Concerto is quite simply the best piano concerto of the last 20 years. Unlike his Cello Concerto or the Double Concerto, where the soloist is subsumed in the orchestral texture, here Ligeti embraces the traditional rheatoric of the piano concerto, but twists is around. There are moments reminiciant of Bartok, and moments that have some similarity to minimalist procedures, but the work is never anything less than Ligeti's own, dominated by twisted chormatic lines (but based on a free floating tonality) brilliant textures, and a fascination with ever shifting patterns.

The Mysteries of the Macabre is a reworking for trumpet and chamber orchestra of three arias from the opera Le Grande Macabre. The work is full of high humor and quite playful in the manner of Aventures and Novelle Aventures. This is a nice introduction to the opera itself, if you don't think your ready for a two hour Ligeti piece.

I think the thing that strikes me most about Ligeti's music is it varied expressive quality. Unlike so many of the Darmstadt group, who seemed to be interested in removing expressiveness from their work (mostly unsuccessfully I might add) Ligeti embraces the emotional gesture, and a wide gamut of it as well. You sense the shear delight in sound and material. Moments of the works are quite serious, but other movements are infused with a light-hearted humor that you would not usually associate with an avant-garde composer. As a result, I think Ligeti speaks to people more readily than Boulez or Stockhausen, much as I like their work as well. Ligeti is a humanist, like Nono, but one who isn't afraid of humor.

Performances are spectacular. I have the Boulez recording of the piano concerto and this compares well with the Boulez. I like them both. All of the others must be considered definitive.

Take a chance on this disc. If your ears are open, you'll be glad you did.

Teldec is continuing where Sony left off -- the Ligeti Edition has become the Ligeti Project. By 2003, Teldec plans to release 5 discs that will include all of Ligeti's orchestral music and everything that Sony didn't record in their series of 8. Why 2003? Ligeti will be 80! (See the Teldec site for an interview with Ligeti explaining his goals with the Edition/Project.) You need not wait too much longer for all Ligeti's best known orchestral works to become available in composer-approved Project form. This disc includes the "Chamber Concerto" (1970), previously available on Wergo, and the "Piano Concerto" (1988), again with Ligeti's favorite pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, a piece previously recorded by Boulez for DG. I haven't seen "Melodien" (1971) on disc before, and also included is a new version of a section from Ligeti's opera "Le Grande Macabre" featuring trumpet. Ligeti chose the musicians and directors himself, supervised the recording, and intends these to be the "standard" versions. Magnificent! A chronological presentation would have its merits, but the choice to place the "Piano Concerto" following the earlier works highlights the dramatic shift to a truly postmodern style in Ligeti's most recent period, and it deserves a wide hearing!

You can find good recordings of most of these pieces on other discs, but the purchase of this one would be justified by the Mysteries of the Macabre premier alone. On every piece the musicians sound superhuman (and expressive!) and the sound is almost holographic in its clarity. If you haven't ever heard Ligeti, this wouldn't be a bad place to start (along with Volume 7 of the Sony series). If only I could afford them all!

"The Ligeti Project" released by Warner Classic seeks to continue Sony's inexplicably halted "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition" collecting the composer's complete works. This first installment brings together four chamber pieces.

The opening "Melodien" is an ironic piece. While early Ligeti works, such as "Musica Ricercata" resisted the creative vacuity of Hungary's Stalin-imposed socialist realism, this 1971 piece rebels against the excesses of his own avant-garde fellows. While many contemporary composers where eschewing melody, Ligeti gives us here over 10 minutes of pure melodies, with a beautiful colour which Ligeti has called "iridescent and metalic". The highs get higher and the lows get lower, and the work eventually diffuses into nothingness. I find this performance by the Schoenberg Ensemble slightly unimpressive, preferring the superb 1970's London Sinfonietta performance recently rereleased in DG's Echo 20/21 series.

The "Chamber Concerto" was written at the end of the 1960's, and is clearly linked to the bulk of Ligeti's micropolyphonic work of that decade, especially his "Atmospheres". The opening is aggressive, with stewing melodies and a hammering outburst. The third movement is rhythmic like clockwork, and extremely reminiscent of Ligeti's second string quartet. Ultimately the work doesn't hold my interest as much as other pieces from the same time.

The "Piano Concerto" of 1988 is probably the high point of the disc. Throughout the 1980's Ligeti was fascinated by new means of rhythmic expression, an outgrowth of his studies of African music and jazz piano. Stylistically this concerto is related to his "Trio for Horn, Violin, and Piano" and first book of Piano Etudes, but it is far more frenetic than both. The playing of Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Ligeti's favourite pianist, is what strikes the listener first. However, repeated listenings have made be very appreciative of the players of the ASKO Ensemlble, especially their trumpet player Peter Masseurs.

Finally, "Mysteries of the Macabre" is a light-hearted excerpt from Ligeti's bizzare opera "Le Grande Macabre", set for chamber orchestra. The version here uses a trumpet and piano, though there also exists a thrilling setting for coloratura soprano. At first I thought the trumpet version lackluster, having fond memories of Sybille Ehlert's vocal performance on Gyorgy Ligeti Edition 4: "Vocal Works". The more I listen to the trumpet, though, the more I find I like it, and am beginning to see it as prototypical of Peter Eotvos' recent jazz-like compositions. The performance here can be considered definitive, and is much more captivating than a performance recently rereleased by DG in its Echo 20/21 series.

The liner notes are generally excellent, featuring some words from Ligeti himself on the origin of the pieces, and also an enlightening commentary by Aimard on approaching the Piano Concerto, which Aimard calls the composer's masterpiece.

This is a great coverage of some of Ligeti's larger chamber works, and is highly recommended. This is perhaps not the ideal place to start, one might try instead The Ligeti Project IV with his famous "Requiem" or Gyorgy Ligeti Edition 1: String Quartets and Duets. However, this is all essential music, and worth getting early in one's acquaintance with Ligeti's music.

I start this review with considerable disadvantage as I have no musical education whatsoever. I have been an afficionado of Ligeti's music since visiting the movie theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1968, as a teenager, and experiencing 2001: A Space Odyssey on an enormous screen. The following day I bought the soundtrack and ever since I have loved his music.

You sort of know that you are in trouble when you read the composer's notes which accompany the CD and you feel that you know less than you did before you started reading.

This does not detract from the music however. Of all of the modern day composers, Ligeti above all has the ability to create ethereal structures out of sound with regular instruments. His compositions are haunting and assume a life of their own.

In this collection, a welcome addition to the current library of recorded works available to the public, the four pieces which the composer has selected originated at various times in his career from the early 1970s through to the mid 1980s. While I would not attempt to classify Ligeti as a member of the minimalist school as his work often defies categorisation, he certainly has been influenced by it and in some ways there are some similarities with Terry Riley's early compositions. Ligeti though, unlike many others is open about his influences and his concern with rhythm he notes is assisted with his listening to world music.

Whatever his influences Ligeti creates soundscapes as no other. His work is always a cerebral delight and allows the imagination to flow freely. Listening to this album, and others by this modest genius, one is reminded of science fiction movies where the film makers are able to profuce special effects of lights and ethereal images. Ligeti's music inspires such visions and the listener can experience an almost trancendental experience. This is music for the mind and for the soul because so often it is akin to a spiritual experience.

Wonderful and inspirational.

Even though I've listened to this since it came out, I never tire of it. The Piano Concerto is truly a wonderful work, both "masterpiece" and joke, and why not? Well, maybe not a joke; though, if you listen carefully, you're bound to chuckle at some point. Beethoven, the classical composer Ligeti reminds me most of, had a sense of humor combined with a taste for complexity also.

In fact, I feel as though I am hearing quotations of Beethoven in the cadenza right near the end of the Concerto, but I just can't place them.

The rest of the disc is just as good. These pieces have all been recorded before; even though "Mysteries of the Macabre" is a orchestral premiere, I've got a Roland Pontinen/Hakan Hardenberger version for piano/trumpet I might prefer. But the other performances are the best I've ever heard of these works. Well-recorded too.

It's not easy to write about György Ligeti today, as he has just passed away last Monday, so this is the first review I write about his works with Ligeti death... We know it could happen because of his very weak health, but it hurts when finally it's confirmed that he is not with us... We have his works and that's the most direct way to the immortality, that one Ligeti is living now in our memory and in our ears, those that were filled so many times with his extraordinary music, one of the best I know in the XXth Century, that finally will be Ligeti's century, as his work is quite complete written in that period.

Teldec continued some years ago Sony series of Ligeti music, a break that didn't suffer too much of that change, adding enormous artists like those you can listen in this CD. All the series is an outstanding thing, an some performances are really the best. This was the first CD they launched and it was a really surprise because of the very good performances we can listen, the great recording and the marvellous presentation. Anyway, it was a broken way, because, although Ligeti's series continued till the end, with the 5 volumes, New Line is a project that didn't work very well, with a few CDs released only.

Melodien has the best performance I know in this CD. We had a very interesting one on Atherton hands with the London Sinfonietta, in a very hard to find CD in Decca label, now re-released on DG 20 21 Echo, but I really think this one is much more better, with the enormous precision the Schoenberg Ensemble use to have, and with the taste of the contemporary groups, that really have this works as they basic language. Very good performance of an interesting work, that is not between my favourites of Ligeti.

Kammerkonzert is a piece I really love, from I time in which the Hungarian master was composing some of his most impressive compositions, like his Requiem or the Cello Concert. This Chamber Concerto tries to explore different sound combinations, densities, instruments research, tone limits, mechanical rhythms, etc; in a way very close to his Second String Quartet. The performance we listen here is fluid, technical and beautiful, probably a bit more natural than Ensemble Modern one, that is more sharp and direct, but still my favourite. My rank for this concert nowadays would be: 1. Ensemble Modern / Peter Eötvös (Sony). 2. Schoenberg Ensemble / de Leeuw (Teldec). 3. Ensemble InterContemporain / Pierre Boulez (DG).

The Piano Concerto (1988) is a work from Ligeti's final period (now we finally know it's the final one), a part of his catalogue I really don't like so much like the `50s, `60s and `70s one. Influenced by Nancarrow and the piano studies of the American, Ligeti works again with reminiscences of the folk tunes and the popular rhythms, researching poly-rhythms and breaking the lines he was following during many years, reinventing himself in some way, something that received critics from other composers, like Lachenmann's words on this `turning back' of Ligeti. Anyway, this Concert has very interesting moments, even terrifying, like the second movement, which really seems a walk on the night through the Transylvanian paths, with the sound of the wolves around us. The performance by Aimard and the ASKO Ensemble is superb, outstanding; Aimard do it so well like he did with Boulez (DG), and the ensemble playing is marvellous in all the senses. The colours, the instruments, the atmosphere... all is perfect.
Mysteries of the macabre is a work I don't like really very much compared with other works by Ligeti. There's a very good recording on DG, with Boulez, but this one, with the outstanding player Peter Masseurs is really wonderful.

Perfect recordings, really natural, clear and precise, in an outstanding CD you should buy, like the complete series on Sony and Teldec, if you want to know deeply Ligeti. He is lucky of having those two marvellous series, together with some other marvellous CDs by Eötvös, Boulez, Atherton, etc.

The music of György Ligeti is enjoying much performance success these days as works by the master are appearing more often on the season repertoires of the major orchestra. This superb recording, the first in the excellent survey series of Ligeti's music, opens the cycle with some of the most accessible and most beautiful of the composer's works.

Beginning with the ethereal 'Melodien' the Schönberg Ensemble as conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw plays with such transparent clarity that it feels as though the listener is in the midst of the orchestra. The 'Chamber Concerto for 13 Instrumentalists' is aptly titled as Ligeti gives utterly equal importance to each of the 13 players in their solo portions: keyboards include harpsichord, organ, piano and celesta; strings - two violins, double bass, viola and cello; trombone, horn, bass clarinet, clarinet, oboe/English horn/oboe d'amore; flute/piccolo. The four movements evolve naturally and inventively. Seeing this work performed is half the glory, and a recent performance by the LA Philharmonic New Music Group conducted by Alexander Mickelthwate was a revelation.

The Piano Concerto is brilliant as a work and here played with total authority and style by Pierre-Laurent Aimard with the ASKO Orchestra. It would be difficult to imagine a more perfect reading. The 'Mysteries of the Macabre' is an interesting transcription of arias form Ligeti's opera, here performed by trumpeter Peter Masseurs and the ASKO Orchestra. The opera succeeds on every level: the transcriptions, while of great interest, don't maintain the impact of the voice as focal point.

In all, this is a very important CD and one that encourages us to continue with the entire cycle. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, January 06