For a while he worked freelance at the West German Radio
studio for electronic music in Cologne before undertaking a study of the music
of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel and Pierre Boulez. In the 1960s,
Ligeti was associate professor at the Summer School for Contemporary Music in
Darmstadt and guest professor at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in
Stockholm. He became Professor of
Composition at the Hamburg Musikhochschulein in 1973.
It was whilst working in the Cologne recording studio in
1958 that Ligeti caused a sensation with his electronic composition
Artikulation (1958). Works that followed, such as Apparitions (1958-59) and
Atmosphères (1961) brought him fame throughout the music world. In these works
from the late 1950s and 1960s, the concept of an extremely densely interwoven
voice structure was increasingly contrasted with static tonal-spatial
compositions. Ligeti’s full-length stage work Le Grand Macabre was composed
between 1974 and 1977 (revised version 1996) and was based on a fable by Michel
de Ghelderode.
In the 1980s and 1990s, in such works as Etudes pour piano, complex
polyrhythmic compositional techniques come to the fore. During the same period,
Ligeti was working on the solo concertos for Piano and Orchestra (1985-88), Violin
and Orchestra (1990/92) and the Hamburg Concerto for horn und chamber orchestra
(1998/99
Ligeti was the recipient of many awards and prizes including
Commandeur dans l'Ordre National des Arts et Lettres, Prix de composition
musicale de la Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (both in 1988), the Music
Prize from the Balzan Foundation (1991), the Ernst-von-Siemens Music Prize (1993), the UNESCO-IMC Music
Prize (1996), honorary membership in the
Rumanian Academy (1997) and nomination as Associé étranger der Académie des
Beaux Arts (1998), the Sibelius Prize from the Jenny and Antti Wihuri
Foundation (2000), the Kyoto Prize for Art and Science (2001), the Medal for
Art and Science from the Senate of the City of Hamburg (2003), the Theodor W.
Adorno Prize from the City of Frankfurt (2003) and the Polar Music Prize from
the Royal Music Academy of Sweden (2004).
György Ligeti died in Vienna on 12 June 2006.
Orchestral works from across Ligeti’s compositional life
have been gathered together on a new release from Ondine www.ondine.net with violinist, Benjamin Schmid
www.benjaminschmid.com , and the
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra http://yle.fi/musiikki/klassinen/rso
conducted by Hannu Lintu www.hannulintu.fi
ODE 1213-2 |
Lontano (1967) is a largely micropolyphonic work, a technique that is best described as having polyphonic musical texture which consists of many lines of dense canons, moving at different tempos or rhythms, thus resulting in vertical tone clusters. This work opens with a long held note before other woodwind join as the music slowly broadens and moves around in this endlessly fascinating and atmospheric opening. This strange music is quite beautiful, especially in the sensitive performance given by Hannu Lintu and his Finnish players. Shimmering strings rise and fall with brass and woodwind, high up in their register adding an ethereal solidity. When the tuba, double bassoon and contrabass clarinet join, they give an amazingly deep sound, entering from the depths and slowly growling as they try to rise up.
Gentle sounds high up in the orchestra make a brief appearance
as the deeper sounds hover around, until being allowed to rise, blending with
the upper wind instrument sounds. The strings swirl and shift as the music
reaches a plateau before falling away at a point where there are some lovely
brass textures. Eventually a hushed section is reached with shimmering strings
before a long held wind passage arises from the hushed texture. When the wind instruments rise up beautifully
above the low hovering strings, reinforced by high shimmering strings, it
precedes a magical moment when the music suddenly drops to a hush as the music
leads to a quiet, deep still with the sounds of something shifting in the
depths.
In 1967 this would probably have been challenging. Now,
within the context of history, it is revealed as a work of quiet power and
beauty.
The next work on this disc, Ligeti’s Violin Concerto (1989-1993),
jumps forward in time by over 20 years.
The composer creates, in this work, some strange sonorities by use of the
ceramic flute and natural horns as well as requiring two of the accompanying
string instruments, a violin and viola to be tuned a quarter tone flatter than
the soloist and other strings of the orchestra. In five movements, the first, Praeludium,
starts with an insistent motif on the strings that soon gives way to a shifting,
rising and falling microtonal motif with sharp interruptions from the solo
violin, as a complex pattern emerges. Eventually the violin plays a constantly
shifting theme that dances around rapidly until it reduces to a quixotic theme
with trumpet before the violin ruminates on the theme. The dancing motif returns
before the music falls away to end.
In the second movement, Aria,
Hoquetus, Choral, the solo violin enters in a lovely flowing melody, soon
joined by a viola. The woodwind enter to accompany the solo violin followed by natural
horns playing a dissonant counterpoint. The distinctive sound of the ceramic
flute appears whilst the solo violin plays pizzicato before settling on a rather
skittish theme around the slower sound of the ceramic flute. The solo violin
provides some intense textures to contrast with the horns, then with the
ceramic flute there is a dramatically dissonant sound with pizzicato orchestral
strings adding to the dissonance. Eventually the music drops to quiet wind
sounds as the dissonance falls away and the melodic solo violin returns that,
nevertheless, quietly recalls the dissonant chords. A flute plays a quiet,
gentle, swaying melody to conclude the movement.
The Intermezzo
brings the solo violin entering high up over quietly rising and falling strings
of the orchestra, developing a melody to which various brass and woodwind
instruments add their contribution, all adding disparate motifs. Strangely, all
of these sounds slowly combine as the solo violin continues its way forward
with the opening melody, until rising to a climax together with brass bringing
the music to a sudden end.
The Passacaglia
opens quietly on woodwind but soon a hushed theme, high on the solo violin
surreptitiously enters, other instruments enter as the music very slowly
broadens and becomes more distinct. Yet still the solo violin keeps to its
quiet high melody until a little outburst occurs and the solo violin takes on a
more dominant and strident role with bold chords. Percussion enter as the solo
violin provides more animated phrases, though there is an atmospheric, haunting
underlying sound from the woodwind as the solo violin weaves ahead. These
woodwind instruments continue to play slow phrases whilst the solo violin
pushes ahead in a difficult, dissonant but highly effective passage until the
timpani signal a brief climax leading to the coda.
A repeated solo violin motif opens Appassionato, against dissonant woodwind before the violin soon
adopts aggressive staccato chords. The brass join in as the music has a descending
motif, somewhat jazz like in tempo and rhythm. The solo violin enters again in
a fast and furious section with the solo violin playing around a dancing woodwind
figure before an orchestral outburst leads to the re-entry of a quiet, more
subdued solo violin theme. This is soon fragmented with the orchestra and solo
violin returning to a fast moving passage followed by a cadenza, more
conventional in nature, before drums signal a sudden coda.
Benjamin Schmid is fabulous in this extremely taxing work,
superbly accurate, sensitive and showing complete command in the complex music.
Atmospheres (1961) takes
us back to Ligeti’s earlier phase of composition and opens with densely laden
orchestral sounds from the bass before various instruments of the orchestra
emerge from the mists to reach a more transparent shimmering texture. The music
recedes but small orchestral motifs quietly emerge, slowly rising and becoming
louder with strange ethereal sounds. Suddenly the music drops to growling
basses only to give way to quiet swirling orchestral sounds. These swirling
strings provide a short outburst as do the more intense sounds of the brass.
Hushed murmurings from the strings, woodwind and brass appear before growls
from the brass return, quietly this time, and the music disappears into
nothing.
San Francisco
Polyphony (1974) opens with swirling orchestral sounds with many orchestral
instruments playing their own motifs and rhythms yet with an overall cohesion.
At times, this work has the feel of a concerto for orchestra, such is the
diversity of orchestral sounds. Soon there is a quiet, held orchestral passage,
with something of an organ like sonority, out of which brass motifs emerge.
Suddenly violent strings appear over the long held orchestral sound, followed
by the woodwind quietly playing a rising motif over the orchestra. Eventually a
richer melodic passage appears for full orchestra around which brass, woodwind
and others swirl as the music appears to reach a climax but drops back. A bass
drum sounds, a moment of great tension and anticipation as the quietly hovering
orchestra seems to be about to erupt, yet it only slowly rises with scurrying orchestral
sounds. There is a crash from the tam tam before the orchestra quietens. The
music swirls to a number of climatic moments with chattering orchestral
instrumental sounds before a final climax.
The violin concerto has many fine moments but it is the pure
orchestral works from the 1960s and 1970s that I found really engrossing and often
very beautiful. These performances from Hannu Lintu and Finnish Radio Symphony
Orchestra couldn’t be bettered.
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