György Ligeti - Piano Concerto, I-II
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- Piano Concerto (1985-1988)
I. Vivace molto ritmico e preciso
II. Lento e deserto
III. Vivace cantabile
IV. Allegro risoluto, molto ritmico
V. Presto luminoso
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
Asko Ensemble
Reinbert de Leeuw
György Ligeti completed his Piano Concerto in 1988. It is in five movements, twenty-five minutes in duration, and perhaps the finest concerto from the 1980s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the composer wrote many successful concertos. In these earlier works, Ligeti was writing extremely dense and dissonant works in a style that utilized micropolyphony, a method of writing he created where numerous independent melodic lines become a larger, sonorous mass of sound. Ligeti had acquired enough listeners and imitators to be at the forefront of the avant-garde. Then in the late 1970s he suffered a heart condition that made him incapable of composing for years. When he returned to health in the 1980s the music he was writing was different, in some ways returning to his original love of Bartók which preceded his period of micropolyphony compositions.
Ligeti's Piano Concerto is a super-modern piano concerto, featuring all the knowledge and musicality of a brilliant composer who had carefully absorbed the musical lessons and currents of the twentieth century. It eludes serialism but does not shy completely away from the sonorities associated with it. Ligeti and Boulez were good friends, and Boulez often conducted and recorded Ligeti's. It is interesting that Boulez had once championed a specific kind of avant-garde approach and claimed it to be the only one of value, but became an advocate of one of the very few composers who ignored this mandate completely.
The beginning of the Concerto is among the most consonant moments in Ligeti's catalog, spiraling into regions of timbre and rhythmic impetus that have no precedent. It is not regressive or grindingly rigorous, never sounding as though it attempts to fit a new method of composing into an exclusive musical envelope. Other important influences at work here are the piano rolls of Conlon Nancarrow, and fractal mathematics. Clearly, this is synthetic music. Furthermore, Ligeti is not afraid to have a horn solo sail over the burgeoning musical engine of great excitement, even though the idea is unoriginal in theory. In this work, there is very little of a foreground/background duality. The piano steers the ship from within, making its presence not a separate component but rather a vital one. What is really wondrous about this work is its lack of lofty tone. Ligeti here seems jubilant, having a great time, and is well-disposed towards all. Ligeti's Piano Concerto is an excellent piece for introducing the uninitiated to the world of the avant-garde; it is welcoming, warm, and makes a total lack of triviality sound as approachable as a Buster Keaton film. [allmusic.com]
Art by Richard Anuszkiewicz
Hello Guzman, Ligeti was also a great improviser! He once said that his original inspirations for pieces came from his exploratory improvisations. He also said that his improvisations were too naive to be used in the final form of a composition. His use of rhythmic ratios between voices is a wonderful contribution to compositional method and practice. The composer must get everything as he/she wants it, then presents it in its final form; while the improviser seeks to employ the same motivic manipulations, but is at the mercy of the immediacy of performance. Improvisation is invaluable for both composition and "instant composition through improvisation." ( I quoted him in my book. I love Ligeti's approach to composition!!)
rather than relying on intellect like so many adventurous composers it sounds like he has emotional intent, in a way the music is in a "realist" style, rather than sounding like an idealized world of manicured gardens like more traditional music tends to sound, instead it sounds like some natural ecosystem where many different living things are in collusion and conflict simultaneously, this would make an excellent sound track to a serious movie, its amazing how "electronic" it sounds without any electronics, which only elevates some of what has been done with electronics
bill wesley very well put...
Phuk! Ligeti! Why is all of your music sooo goooood!
I love this so gosh darn muuuch!!!
Красиво
Too great
Fantastic!! I love it.
I like Ligeti for the same reason I liike Steve Reich - uniquely among post-1950 classical composers, they Has Jazz (I exclude Conlon Nancarrow because he started earlier). And when he is cold and desolate, as in the second movement, he is *terrifyingly* so, as much as in his requiem.
07:37 HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I got scared
Can you cite the source where you wrote that "due to a heart condition, Ligeti had to stop composing for years?" As I understand it, he went through a stylistic crisis in the late 70s, after the completion of his opera, "Le Grand Macabre" (1974-78) and due to this crisis he had a minor output, but still composed some small scales works like "Hungarian Rock" (1978), Horn Trio (1982). He composed this piece (the concerto) from 1980 (sketches) and finished the final draft in 1988, this was the only large scale ensemble piece resultant from the "stylistic crisis." I've never heard of a heart condition, which is why I ask for the source. Interesting!
Bernard Walasavage Check allmusic.com. Cheers!
this is how hidden depression feels like
Is this the song used in Christopher Wheeldon Polyphonia?
No it's Desordre, from his Piano Etudes
no, but damn good guess...the piano part IS very much 'recycled' from desordre..In fact the whole piece is based on desordre
Kin Ell.
4 kin ell
More power to those that like this, but it sounds like the aural embodiment of a psychotic break to me.
(:
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Then this isn't your cup of tea...among its 'peers' this is hands down the winner with a LOT of daylight between it and second place...it simply does NOT get any better than this...You just don't have the ear for it...it just takes practice and lots of listening
Don't psychotic breaks deserve musical representation?
But I get it though. As I've been getting more and more into modern music I never can shake the same feeling: Does *all* of it have to sound weird? And in fact I think a lot of the more adventurous composers yearned to write something more melodic as well, but the march of time and all the competition didn't really allow for it. Would you risk being "out-of-date" or "irrelevant"?
Don't knock the innovation though - Stanley Kubrick used no less than four Ligeti pieces in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And movie music relies on those innovations relentlessly. A lot of the sounds in your favorite movies didn't exists before the experiments of the 60's.
But we all want more melody though, I think. And maybe it's time to not be ashamed of that. I mean if you're a modern classical composer. You can be psychotic but you can be warm and nice sometimes too. And actually Ligeti did that: Check out his Six Bagatelles for examples.
Look up the dude's history. It might show a little insight into his musical journey.
Disordre.
he recycled a lot of his piano etudes brilliantly into other pieces...The etude Autumn in Warsaw with its lament themes superimposed on each other is the material for the second movement of this concerto...The second movement of his violin concerto uses one of his early pieces from the piano set Ricercata...AND used in his viola concerto. Throughout his life there seemed to be a smallish handful of tropes that he reworked throughout his life...Which of course pulls together the larger narrative his life's work...