Some composers suffer an eclipse after their death, but György
Ligeti is clearly not one of them. If anything, his fame - even popularity -
has only increased since he died in 2006. His was a unique voice that holds
its own in these times of seeming retrogression to an earlier era where
immediate gratification by the listener is paramount. Ligeti, on the other
hand, will always be “ahead of his time” and give the listener
something more than surface appeal.
The selections on this disc are as good a place as any for the
newcomer to this composer to get an appreciation for what is so exciting
about Ligeti’s way of expressing himself in music. Here are seminal
works of the 1960s’ avant-garde, the richer palette of the 1970s, and
the magnificent summing up of his whole compositional life that the Violin
Concerto represents.
Atmosphères and
Lontano are two of
Ligeti’s most famous compositions, as they contain his trademark
micropolyphonic sound of the 1960s. These works are concerned with texture
and are basically static. They comprise sound clusters that depend on
dynamics for variation but seem like unbroken lines of dense sound. They
hold the listener’s attention by their changing dynamics and
orchestral color.
Atmosphères became famous by its use in
Stanley Kubrick’s film,
2001-A Space Odyssey without the
composer’s permission, which upset Ligeti to no small degree. However,
it soon made Ligeti famous in the West.
The benchmark recordings of this music are found in Volume II of
Teldec’s Ligeti Project, as performed by the Berlin Philharmonic under
Jonathan Nott. Hannu Lintu and the Finnish Radio Symphony hold their own
against those recordings and put a different interpretative slant on the
music. They in fact have a slight advantage in that the background of the
recorded sound is totally silent, whereas the Teldec recordings were
apparently recorded live and some background noise is apparent when
listening on headphones. On the other hand, the Berliners produce greater
contrast in the dynamics and, therefore, increase interest in these pieces.
Lintu’s tempos are broader than Nott’s, but overall this makes
little difference. I am happy to have heard these new performances, but will
likely return to the Teldec recordings whenever I want to listen to this
music.
With
San Francisco Polyphony we enter a more complex and
colourful phase in Ligeti’s career. Rhythm now plays an important role
and there is a great deal of activity occurring in the large orchestra.
Hannu Lintu himself wrote the programme notes for this CD, where he
discusses the “independent existence” of certain instrumental
details in this work. This effect is “highlighted by certain
instruments detaching themselves from the conductor’s pulse and acting
independently” before they are brought back into line. I am reminded
here of Lutosławski’s aleatoric methods, but Ligeti’s
digressions apparently are not
ad libitum as they are with the Polish
composer. Lintu has the measure of this score, but again is up against Nott
on the same Teldec volume as the other two works. My comments on the
contrasting accounts for those also stand for
San Francisco
Polyphony. One’s preference may be determined by what else is
accompanying this music on each CD. For Nott, it is Ligeti’s first
substantial orchestral score,
Apparitions, and the early, folksy, and
humorous
Concert Românesc, both in world première
recordings. This new disc has one of Ligeti’s greatest and
increasingly popular concertos.
One could say that the Violin Concerto is a microcosm of
Ligeti’s whole output in under 30 minutes duration, a true summing up
of his career. It goes back to his Transylvanian roots and contains
folk-like material that he used much earlier in his compositions, such as
the second movement melody he deployed in the Bagatelles for Wind Quintet.
At the same time it incorporates elements from Medieval and Renaissance
music as well as micro-tonality. This can give the work an otherworldly
sound that Lintu describes from the way instruments are tuned: “Two of
the accompanying string instruments are tuned according to an overtone
series borrowed from the double bass. The violin is tuned sharper and the
viola a quarter tone flatter than the solo violin and the other strings in
the ensemble.” At times this deliberate playing out of tune gives one
a slightly queasy feeling, yet the Romantic nature of the work’s
themes readily stays with the listener. The concerto is scored for solo
violin and a chamber orchestra that includes natural horns and ocarinas
along with the usual instruments. It is not just a colourful work, but in my
opinion the most important violin concerto of the late twentieth-century and
one that has received numerous outstanding performances. Before this
recording there were at least four available on CD: the première
recording by Saschko Gawriloff with Pierre Boulez (DG)-the work was
commissioned by Gawriloff, who supplied the cadenza in the last movement;
Christina Åstrand with Thomas Dausgaard (Chandos); Frank Peter
Zimmermann with Reinbert de Leeuw (Vol. III of Teldec’s Ligeti
Project); and most recently, Patricia Kopatchinskaja with Peter
Eötvös (Naïve). Most violinists have used Gawriloff’s
cadenza, or a variation of it, as Benjamin Schmid does here. Kopatchinskaja
is the exception, as she devised her own more extensive cadenza for her
account. All of these performances are excellent, but Kopatchinskaja’s
is in a class by itself. Her disc was one of my favourite recordings of
2013. Schmid does not reach the same level of communication and bravura, but
his is a committed performance nonetheless. Lintu and a reduced Finnish
Radio Symphony accompany very well and the sound allows much wonderful
detail to come through.
As indicated above, Lintu provides notes on the works, which are
concise but contain valuable information. The performances may not supersede
the others I have listed, but they are all worthy in their own right. The
programme on this CD would seem to be an ideal place to obtain a good
sampling of Ligeti’s music. If it appeals, do not hesitate.
Leslie Wright
