Search - Pierre Boulez, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Saschko Gawriloff :: György Ligeti: Concertos for Cello / Violin / Piano - Pierre Boulez / Ensemble InterContemporain

Worth the extreme effort

Archel | Sydney, Australia | 10/07/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When I first bought this I thought of Ligeti as a distinguished atonal, postmodern composer, but have since discovered that he is much more unique than that description suggests. He is beyond tonality and atonality, and beyond postmodernism. In his own words: "the ironic theatricalizing of the past is quite foreign to me." Written between 1985 and 1992, the Piano Concerto and Violin Concerto together are supposed to demonstrate the full expressive range of his later works. The Piano Concerto is a whirlwind of rhythmically driven fantasies, created by precise, almost mechanical, colliding cross-rhythms, and twisted, sprightly melodies. The Violin Concerto is just as quirky and jarring, but wilder and more impassioned, less 'mechanical,' more vigorous, and ultimately the highlight of the disc. I find Perre Laurent-Aimard's second version of the Piano Concerto, with the Schonberg Ensemble under Reinbert de Leeuw's, more enjoyable than this recording, but of the two available recordings of the Violin Concerto this seems to be widely considered the better (the only one I've heard). All of the compositions on the disc demonstrate amazingly effective use of space and time, and advanced virtuosity at the absolute service of artistic vision. Excellent recording.For me, as a newcomer to modern 'classical' music, this disc demanded some serious listening adjustment, attention and patience, but it was well worth the effort. Judging by the liner notes, a degree in music theory might also have been of great help, but I don't think I am prepared to go THAT far to fully appreciate these remarkable musical/sonic experiences."

Great works and performances, and you must have it.

Lord Chimp | Monkey World | 05/08/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ligeti is my favorite composer, and Bartok. This is an excellent disc. As a compilation of three excellent, major Ligeti works (the cello concerto is great; the piano and violin concertos are masterpieces), this makes for an excellent introduction to Ligeti's unique, avant-garde world. Because of the excellent performances (Pierre Boulez conducting his Ensemble Intercontemporain, with pure virtuosos on the featured solo instruments), this should be owned by all Ligeti lovers as well.Ligeti's sonic arrangements seem preternaturally conceived. Musical analysis for this is basically out of my league so I will just provide general comments. The violin concerto is Ligeti's most organic use of the orchestra. Although Saschko Gawriloff's violin is obviously the most prominent and active instrument, it is very much the root of the music that gives rise to the orchestral extrapolations. The piano concerto is similar in this regard, but its core extends from the piano's attack and is mechanical and forceful, more explicitly polyrhythmic and convolutedly metered, rather than the violin's sinuousness and the watery movement of the orchestra (that can be both fierce and placid). Ligeti is very good at thinking for the instruments in that way. I have come to prefer this version of Ligeti's concerto for piano and orchestra over the one on Teldec's Ligeti Project I, although on that one Aimard really nails the third movement. It is also great and worth hearing. This performance of the violin concerto is also better than one on Ligeti Project III, although it too is of value. The cello concerto is darker than these later concertos, like a lot of earlier Ligeti music. This mysterious piece that begins with cello playing a single note that is nearly silent. Different layers are added and it develops more as a texture-minded concerto than a solo-minded one. The second movement is distinctly contrasted with second, an aggressive array of multiple fractured melodies and interlocking meters. It fades out like it started, with cello alone, but now as a scratchy vibrato. It's good, I have nothing bad to say about it, but it doesn't reach the level of the later concertos. This is brilliant music. Buy it even if you think avant-garde is scary."

All major works by a remarkably original composer.

Karl Henzy | 02/04/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What's remarkable about the late Ligeti is that he found a new direction to move in after the extraordinary opera, Le Grand Macabre, which was a kind of summation of everything he'd been doing from 1960 to 1978, the date of Macabre's completion. In retrospect, we can now see all the "minor" works from the 80s on, the Piano Etudes, the Trio, the Viola Sonata, etc, as so many studies in preparation for these two major works--the Piano Concerto and the Violin Concerto. Both works essentially undermine the whole idea of the traditional concerto--with virtuoso soloist highlighted by orchestral support (even when the orchestra is temporarily in opposition to the soloist, it only serves to dramatize the soloist-as-hero). In Ligeti's contertos (or concerti), it's as if the soloist has shown up for the traditional concert and begins to play, but immediately starts hallucinating--the orchestra evoking an uncanny, strange world (our world), in which continuing to play the usual notes becomes an act of will, or rather, a desperate grasping of a sort of lifeline. By the time the violinist plays his (conventional) cadenza in the last movement of the Violin Concerto, for instance, the prior context has turned this gesture into something completely ironic--an attempt to finish the concert as if all were normal, when all is most certainly not normal. The pianist's almost mechanical rhythm in the first movement of the Piano Concerto has a similar effect--it evokes an act of will to carry on, and the sense of absurdity behind it. Ligeti is easily one of the five or so most original composers of our time. Like Carter, Lutoslawski, Kurtag, he has created a world that is completely his own, and yet absolutely compelling."