Search - Gyorgy Ligeti, Steve Reich, African Traditional :: African Rhythms

If you like experiments...

Roy U. Rojas Wahl | Teaneck, NJ United States | 06/23/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"...then this is the right place to start. And if you like cross-overs, this is one of the more laudable efforts to consider.The basic idea behind this CD is brilliant: An exciting confrontation really, a comparison, between contemporary culture and rhythms, and indegenious ones from a thousands of years ago...! Little has changed, the cynic would say, however, but we all know,so much has changed. Pierre-Laurand Aimard plays Ligeti and Reich very dark, like a rich french coffee, but with tempo and a kick, and still with mysticism which is very very black. It's hard to imagine, but the piano actually CAN do these things, and it requires a master like him here to drive it to its full potential. Ligeti's comments range from the extravagant to the funny.What I like most about this CD ist the fact that intends to be completely uncommercial. What a miracle in today's world full of cross-over pressure (from the labels), commerce and bombast, and therefore, by all means, go and get this CD, and be it just to promote art before the dictate of money, money and more money...!"

Beautiful

Mikhail Lewis | Missoula, MT, USofA | 02/06/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Aka Pygmy group was recorded in Teldex Studio Berlin, rather than in the field as usual, and thus the recording features the clearest and most beautiful Pygmy music I have heard.



Aimard's performance of Ligeti's Etudes is also amazing, and would be highly preferable to Frederick Ullen's recordings if complete.



Reich is somewhat neglected for lack of piano works, with Music for Pieces of Wood being adapted to piano.



The liner notes, by musical director Simha Arom, Aimard, Ligeti, and Reich are far more imformative than most, explaining the conception of the disc and features of all three musics."

The worldview-changing music of an African tribe next to pie

Christopher Culver | 04/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"That this Warner Classics CD from 2003 has fallen into obscurity is one of the real tragedies of the modern-classical world. When the Aka Pygmies came to Paris for a series of concerts at the turn of the millennium, pianist Pierre Laurent-Aimard thought it worth recording their striking vocal polyphony and issuing it on disc, joined by some of the piano etudes of Gyorgy Ligeti and two small pieces by Steve Reich, composers heavily indebted to African rhythms.



The Aka Pygmy songs are mainly purely vocal, but simple instruments appear on a few tracks. In his liner notes, famed musicologist Simha Arom says that Western music only caught up with this ancient African tradition with the Ars Nova of the 14th century. But in fact, while listening to the Aka Pygmies one feels that the Western world still hasn't reached this sublime point where the popular music of the common people has such dizzying richness. The Aka Pygmies' singing is not some kind of academic art music tradition, but the customary music of simple, unlettered people.



Some of the Ligeti etudes here already appeared on the third volume of Sony's Gyorgy Ligeti Edition. However, this is the only place to hear the late Book 3 etudes played by Ligeti's favourite interpreter, and I thought that alone would have attracted more of an audience for the disc. It's ironic that it's Book 3 that appears on a collection entitled "African Rhythms", however, as with the late etudes Ligeti really stepped back from the complexity of the first two books.



The Reich present here is "Clapping Music" (1972) and "Music for Pieces of Wood" for five pairs of tuned claves (1973). In the first, Aimard has done both parts himself with the use of overdubs. The second is in an arrangement for solo piano. These were written after Steve Reich studied in Africa, though in Ghana, a few countries away from the CAR homeland of the Aka Pygmies. The biggest product of that era was the long work "Drumming" (available on a Deutsche Grammophon release), and while I find that immensely dull these shorter pieces have some appeal. Indeed, "Clapping Music" is downright infectious.



Encountering the music of the Aka Pygmies really expanded my horizons, leading me to realize that the modern-classical music of the West is not the only place to find gritty complexity and that indigenous musical traditions are worth seeking out."