Search - Vienna Youth Choir, Vienna Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado (Conductor) :: Wien Modern: Works by György Ligeti (Atmosphères, Lontano) / Luigi Nono (Liebeslied) / Pierre Boulez (Notations I-IV) / Wolfgang Rihm (Départ)

Spectacular performances of unusual repertoire

Bruce Hodges | New York, NY | 07/02/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The most familiar works on this terrific recording are probably the two Ligeti pieces, "Atmospheres" and "Lontano." With remarkable sensitivity and subtlety, Claudio Abbado creates sheer magic out of these other-worldly scores. As but one example, listen to the end of "Atmospheres" as the piece gently fades out with the Vienna Philharmonic creating waves of gorgeous, ethereal harmonics.



This is one of the best versions of Boulez's "Notations" -- on par with the composer's own recording. The orchestra mines all the color Boulez asks for in a really exciting performance. The unusual Rihm and Nono works are also quite marvelous, and all the more valuable for being preserved in readings of such high quality -- and the Vienna Youth Choir sounds splendid.



Throughout the recording, the musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic sound completely comfortable -- as if they play these pieces every week, with a technical assurance that will grab your ears immediately. The sound quality is excellent, especially given that the program was culled from live performances. This is an unusual recording for Abbado, and can't be recommended highly enough for those curious about the repertoire."

Not an absolutely essential disc, but some fine material for

Christopher Culver | 09/22/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Nowadays a lot of people remember Claudio Abbado as a conductor of unthreatening old classics, but he championed quite a bit of modernist repertoire as well. On this old Deutsche Grammophon disc, Abbado leads the Wiener Philharmonic in works by four composers who rose to prominence in the second half of the 20th century. For the Ligeti and Boulez, there are definitive recordings available elsewhere, but the disc should still interest fans of contemporary music for the rare Rihm and Nono material.



Gyorgy Ligeti is represented by two works, both from the 1960s when he eschewed melody for tone clusters and shimmering webs of sound. "Atmospheres" (1961) is what really brought Ligeti to international recognition, not only through the sensation of its premiere under Hans Rosbaud, but also because of Stanley Kubrick's unauthorized use of it in the film 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Packed with thousands of individual little cells, the piece offers something new on every listen, for one can, if one wants, go behind the great whoosh of orchestral sound and concentrate on individual lines. "Lontano" is very similar, though ith this piece Ligeti abandoned total chromaticism. The composer skillfully gives the impression of a great object approaching from far-off, seeming to move slowly but ultimately zooming past the listener. The orchestral texture is very dense, and Ligeti reportedly wrote the piece while addicted to painkillers, which explains a lot. Abbado seems to really understand the pieces, so don't worry that you'd get something silly like Bernstein's notorious reading of "Atmospheres". However, both of these pieces are available on The Ligeti Project II, where Jonathan Nott conducts the Berlin Philharmonic. The Ligeti Project was supervised by Ligeti himself, and as he was infamously hard to please, one can accept them as definitive.



From Pierre Boulez we have four of the French master's "Notations" for orchestra. These are based on twelve Webern-like piano miniatures written in 1945 while Boulez was still a student, but the music was tremendously expanded in orchestration. One has said of the orchestrations that it was almost as if Boulez looked at the original score with a magnifying glass and discovered more notes. The frenetic "Notations II" was only 30 seconds long in the piano original, but in orchestration was expanded to four times that length, and involves every single player in the orchestra in nearly every single barline. Much of the playing can't be immediately noticed by the audience, but serves to thicken the overall texture and power of the ensemble. Pieces I is the most subtle, where the landscape of the music gradually changes on the surface, but if one listens more deeply, dozens of busy operations are at work like tadpoles in a tranquil stream. Abbado's reading is fine, but I much rather prefer the Montaigne disc where David Robertson conducts a French ensemble, as the recording quality is better and Boulez approved the production.



Abbado was a close friend of Luigi Nono (producing a Deutsche Grammophon disc completely dedicated to him). Here we find a very early Nono work, the "Liebesleid" for mixed choir and orchestra. Dating from 1954, it was composed for Arnold Schoenberg's daughter Nuria, whom Nono was to marry the next year. This twelve-tone piece setting romantic phrases must have sounded very modern when it was first written, but it now seems very gentle, and there's none of the political commitment or abrasiveness which marks mature Nono. So, it's a minor piece that I'd recommend only for Nono collectors.



The German composer Wolfgang Rihm is a full generation younger than the other composers, and indeed his career began by rebelling against their aesthetic. "Depart" for chorus, speaking chorus and 22 players (1988) is typical of Rihm, an impressionist style that eschews commitment to any system for visceral gestures. This is the first choral work I've heard by Rihm and it's not bad, but I think it would work better in a live setting where the dramatic element can expressive itself."

Excellent recordings of modern works

Vanilor | Colorado | 07/25/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ligeti's 'Atmospheres' was used in the score of 2001. It is an absolute wall of sound, requiring all the string players to play different notes at once. 'Lontano' has a similar feel and is just as extraordinarily played here. Rihm's 'Depart' is the most avant-garde work on the disc, making use of random percussion effects over the choir. The excellent audio quality is most apparent on this work. Nono's 'Liebeslied' is a fine piece, and Boulez's exciting orchestrations of his Notations round off the disc. It could certainly stand to be longer (running time is about 46 minutes), but for what it represents, this is an excellent CD.

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