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Ionisation
Music of Penderecki, Varèse and Ligeti
Various performers
rec. 1969-72
VOX CDX-5142 [2 CDs: 130:43]

At this remove it seems as ill-conceived to group these three composers as it was to pair Mahler and Bruckner in The Master Musicians series; that was in a volume by Hans Redlich. We are talking about the Redlich book written in the 1960s when the two composers were anointed with equal measures of mystery and allure. Things have moved on to such a degree that we now have multiple boxed sets for each and their symphonies can be heard in concert; perhaps Mahler more than Bruckner.

As for Penderecki, Varèse and Ligeti, in the mid-1990s, when this compilation was first issued, Penderecki was a living and very productive composer. Ligeti was also alive and to some extent rode in popular esteem on the shoulders of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 - A Space Odyssey. As for Varèse, he died during the 1960s but his repute as an “ultra modern” has never waned.

I come to this set not as anything like a seasoned expert on Varèse, Penderecki or Ligeti. Rather, I confront the experience as someone with dim recollections of first hearings and occasionally a measure of initial revulsion.

Varèse’s Intégrales is for small orchestra and dates from the early 1920s. It is a work of the post-Great War avant-garde with its explosive and terse percussion, sphinx-like fanfares, Stravinskian choler and dazzling clarity of aural layout. Clicks, spits, thunders, stamping rhythms suggest arcane ceremonies and classical paradoxes.

Offrandes is broadly from the same era - a song-cycle for soprano with instrumental ensemble including harp. One can see where Bernard Herrmann mined some of his more outlandish effects for the film scores. Again, the style is mystical and for me suggests ancient ceremonies and mystical initiations. The title may ring a bell from Messiaen’s Les Offrandes Oubliées.

Density 21.5 (1936) refers to the density of platinum. George Barrère had a flute made of the metal. The piece is Varèse at his most accessible. The influence of Debussy's faune can be felt throughout and it peers backward to Nielsen's Flute Concerto.

Octandre (1923) for seven wind instruments and double bass is full of ruthless energy and war’s alarums and excursions. The stereo separation is strongly shaped and the recording team made good use of this spatial dimension.

Hyperprism (1922) is for small orchestra and percussion. Groaning brass, sirens, brutally asserted and viscerally exciting brass fanfares seem to announce some loathsome Gehenna.

The sirens carry over into the growl and mystery of Ionisation for percussion ensemble of thirteen players. The ‘ironmongery’ includes whip, chains, anvils and gongs along with the standard array.

As with all these recordings the sound quality is very good. The Varèse sessions were taped in 1968/69 and have survived in rude and even virile good health, capturing even the whispered wails of the siren.

While Varèse's compositions proclaim the attractions of fragmentation and small duration gestures, Penderecki for all his Schoenbergian credentials in the works included here uses dissonance and dodecaphony in the service of longer essentially lyrical if tortured ideas. He was, after the 1960s, to embrace romantic credentials over modernism. For now, these six pieces are very much products of the 1960s. They are not that remote from my first and disconcertingly memorable experience of Penderecki: a radio broadcast in the early 1970s of Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. A star name in the shape of Ilana Vered (b. 1943) is also encountered in Penderecki’s Three Miniatures (1959). In the 1970s Israeli pianist Vered made some high-profile concerto recordings for Decca.

Tony Haywood writing about another recording says of the two sets of Ligeti’s Aventures, that they are “astoundingly original experiments in what the human voice is capable of … the singers are called upon to emit all manner of weird and wonderful sounds. … it’s best to just give yourself over to the aural experience.” These words are applicable here as well. As to the sound in the organ pieces, the lack of audio “plush” is at the 1960s’ outer limits. That said, I would never have doubted the aptness of choosing Gerd Zacher (1929-2014), composer and organist. Zacher was also associated with Allende-Blin, John Cage, Mauricio Kagel and Isang Yun.

Much of what is on these Vox discs will have involved first or at least early recordings. The musicians must have felt the onus of communication of the sound of this music to the world and they rise to the moment. Cerha and his Ensemble Die Reihe were specialists in these sorts of music and it shows. The Kohons, Luxembourg Radio/Television Symphony Orchestra under Alois Springer and Schola Cantorum Stuttgart directed by Clytus Gottwald also show themselves quite at ease in advocating these scores; and advocacy it was - and is.

Rob Barnett


Contents List

CD 1 [65:45]
Edgard VARÈSE (1883-1965)
1. Intégrales (1924-5) [11:35]
2. Offrandes (1921) [7:20]
3. Density 21.5 (1936) [3:56]
4. Octandre (1923) [6:44]
5. Hyperprism (1922-3) [4:25]
6. Ionisation (1929-1931) [5:27]
Helmut Reissberger (flute) (Density)
Gertie Charlent (soprano) (Offrandes)
Die Reihe Ensemble/Friedrich Cerha

Krzysztof PENDERECKI (1933-2020)
7. Emanations (1958) [7:51]
8. Sonata for Cello and Orchestra (1964) [10:35]
Thomas Blees (cello)
Luxembourg Radio/Television Symphony Orchestra/Alois Springer
9. Quartet for Strings No 1 (1960) [7:03]
Kohon String Quartet (Harold Kohon (violin), Isadora Kohon (violin), Eugenie Dengel (viola), Ted Hoyle (cello))

CD 2 [65:01]
10. Stabat Mater (1962) [7:49]
11. Miserere [3:37]
Schola Cantorum Stuttgart/Clytus Gottwald
12. Three Miniatures for violin and piano (1959) [4:54]
Ilana Vered (piano), Gabriel Banat (violin)

György LIGETI (1923 - 2006)
13. Aventures (1962) [11:44]
14. Nouvelles aventures (1962-1965) [12:10]
William Pearson (baritone), Gertie Charlent (soprano), Marie Therese Cahn (alto)
Die Reihe Ensemble/Friedrich Cerha
15. Volumina (1962/1966) [17:16]
16. Study for Organ No 1 "Harmonies" (1967) [6:59]
Gerd Zacher (organ)