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I so much liked an earlier album I'd bought by pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Homage to Messiaen) that I ordered another. This time it was Gyorgi Ligetti: Works for Piano: Etudes, Musica ricercata (GL Edition, vol., 3).
Boy, did I luck out! It is phenomenal piano music! I knew NOTHING about the composer before now. Ligeti was born in 1923, composed the music on this recording between 1951 and 1995. He died in 2006. (Wikipedia records that -en route-- he composed the music for three major Stanley Kubrick films, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut.)
Ligeti is resolutely modernist. To my untutored ears, he's an original --not that he is without influence or peers but that his musical palette is his own and it is startling to listen to. The only modern composer I've heard who resembles him at all is the brilliant Anglo-Punjabi, Khaikoshru Sorabji [d. 1988].) Well, that's not quite true. The Musica ricercata does bring to mind Bartok, whom Ligeti acknowledges as an influence
The music on this exceptional album of piano studies is often not only NOT melodical, it is ANTI-melodical, emphasizing rhythm and dynamics over melody or lyric flow, and building on and taking advantage of the peculiar note structuring of the piano keyboard. I've never heard another composer use the keyboard's high notes as effectively as Ligeti does. He is a singularly percussive composer, which is good for piano, because behind its harmonic capabilities, the piano is still an instrument that the player pounds on. (Lizst certainly understood this, and so did Rachmaninoff.) Ligeti's use of fortissimo and pianissimo, the extremes of dynamics, is impressive. No, expressive is a better word for what it evokes in the listener's emotions and mind!
Musica ricercata (1951-53) is a suite for eleven short pieces. It was influenced by Bartok's similar suite for piano, Mikrokosmos (1926-1939). (Not the end of similarities! Both men were born in Romania. Bartok is considered one of Hungary's greatest composers; Ligeti completed his formal training in Hungary, studying with Zoltan Kodaly among others.)
Let me attempt to describe what is so special about one piece. The first piece in the Musica ricercata starts with two chorded piano tremolos, played full strength. Then a single note is played -once, sharply and fully. All music stops while the note dies away, gradually, into oblivion. There's silence, a long pause, nothing played at all, and then two keys are hit over and over again, in succession, subtly building to a crescendo, not melody but rhythmic pulse. Subtle variations are played over a ground pattern. A series of pounding chords enters, followed by a single sharp note and the note falling away. The piece is over.
The pieces are short, running from 50 seconds to 5 minutes and 16 seconds. They often end abruptly, just when the listener has been seduced into listening to them. This is very good music. Taking risks in buying music does pay off. Sometimes.
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Top reviews from other countries
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GirReviewed in France on July 23, 2024
Une musique qui ne ressemble à aucune autre .
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- Mikko RautakorpiReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2016
Strong piano music
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sanjunioReviewed in Japan on October 15, 2011
おすすめは１３番目の「悪魔の階段」。ピアノの弦が弾き出す音粒を耳で観よ！
