|  | | | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 EXCEPTIONAL PIANO MUSIC BY AN ORIGINAL Nov 12, 2009
I so much liked an earlier album I'd bought by pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Homage to Messiaen) that I ordered another. This time it was Gyorgi Ligetti: Works for Piano: Etudes, Musica ricercata (GL Edition, vol., 3).
Boy, did I luck out! It is phenomenal piano music! I knew NOTHING about the composer before now. Ligeti was born in 1923, composed the music on this recording between 1951 and 1995. He died in 2006. (Wikipedia records that -en route-- he composed the music for three major Stanley Kubrick films, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut.)
Ligeti is resolutely modernist. To my untutored ears, he's an original --not that he is without influence or peers but that his musical palette is his own and it is startling to listen to. The only modern composer I've heard who resembles him at all is the brilliant Anglo-Punjabi, Khaikoshru Sorabji [d. 1988].) Well, that's not quite true. The Musica ricercata does bring to mind Bartok, whom Ligeti acknowledges as an influence
The music on this exceptional album of piano studies is often not only NOT melodical, it is ANTI-melodical, emphasizing rhythm and dynamics over melody or lyric flow, and building on and taking advantage of the peculiar note structuring of the piano keyboard. I've never heard another composer use the keyboard's high notes as effectively as Ligeti does. He is a singularly percussive composer, which is good for piano, because behind its harmonic capabilities, the piano is still an instrument that the player pounds on. (Lizst certainly understood this, and so did Rachmaninoff.) Ligeti's use of fortissimo and pianissimo, the extremes of dynamics, is impressive. No, expressive is a better word for what it evokes in the listener's emotions and mind!
Musica ricercata (1951-53) is a suite for eleven short pieces. It was influenced by Bartok's similar suite for piano, Mikrokosmos (1926-1939). (Not the end of similarities! Both men were born in Romania. Bartok is considered one of Hungary's greatest composers; Ligeti completed his formal training in Hungary, studying with Zoltan Kodaly among others.)
Let me attempt to describe what is so special about one piece. The first piece in the Musica ricercata starts with two chorded piano tremolos, played full strength. Then a single note is played -once, sharply and fully. All music stops while the note dies away, gradually, into oblivion. There's silence, a long pause, nothing played at all, and then two keys are hit over and over again, in succession, subtly building to a crescendo, not melody but rhythmic pulse. Subtle variations are played over a ground pattern. A series of pounding chords enters, followed by a single sharp note and the note falling away. The piece is over.
The pieces are short, running from 50 seconds to 5 minutes and 16 seconds. They often end abruptly, just when the listener has been seduced into listening to them. This is very good music. Taking risks in buying music does pay off. Sometimes.
I like Ligeti Apr 14, 2008
I like the inventiveness of G. Ligeti. The Musica Ricercata Suite is a good and early example of his continuous search for new musical structures.
I'm just a music listener, with no qualification to comment the interpretation of Mr. Aimard.
I'm satisfied.
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 A nice micro-view of Ligeti's work Mar 11, 2007
In the notes that accompany this CD, Ligeti explains that his piano compositions are the way he made up for his inadequacies as a player. It's hard to argue that he didn't reach his goal. These superbly-performed pieces provide a clear view of many aspects of Ligeti's work--his humor, his lyricism, his ear, and sometimes his little obsessions.
The most obvious technical requirement of this music is touch. In some of the etudes, complex voicings are required at very low dynamic levels. In others, the ability to bring out multiple voices is paramount. Aimard is perfect. His technique is so assured that we can easily get to the music and not be sidetracked by prowess.
Those who know Ligeti's music know how protean he could be. Like a good athlete, he was willing to take on enormous risks. Sometimes the result felt intellectualized and tiresome. But more often than not, the music soared. This is certainly true of the Etudes on this disk. They are studies in the truest sense of the word--one may focus on a particular set of intervals, another on a texture, yet another on a rhythm. Each one is fascinating and the collection holds together nicely. There are even hints of Nancarrow!
Ligeti himself felt ambiguously about the "Musica Ricercata", and it isn't hard to see why. The first piece is based on only two pitches (with octaves); the second on three and so on. It sort of proves a point, but what point? By the time you get to the fourth piece, it starts to get good, but the listener has to regain some flagging energy. The third piece is actually the basis of the opening of "6 Bagatelles for Wind Quintet".
So while I have little quibbles, I still recommend this disk strongly. It's great music, beautifully played.
4 of 17 found the following review helpful:
Very Nice Piano Studies. Not the best Ligeti Sep 02, 2006
Volume 3 of the Gyorgy Ligeti Edition on Sony has gotten a boatload of very positive reviews, above, from people who probably know a lot more about music, especially piano music, than I do, but I maintain, from my position as a rank amateur who just happens to like listening to a wide range of classical music, that this disc is neither the very best piano music nor the most interesting Ligeti.
Don't get me wrong. I think almost all of the studies on these tracks are good, maybe even almost as good as Chopin and Liszt, but I don't think so. We don't hum Ligeti etudes the way some people hum Chopin etudes or dances for piano. And, a few of the passages sound like the scene from 'Ghostbusters' where Bill Murray tickles the very high keys on Sigourny Weaver's piano as they enter her apartment to track down some particularly awesome apparitions of Zuel (sic) and Gozer (sic sic).
If you are looking to touch only the high points of Ligeti's music and don't have the compulsioin to own everything, you can pass on these and not be missing too much of the good stuff. Check out his choral and a capella works for the really hot stuff.
1 of 21 found the following review helpful:
 More of Legeti's babblings Jan 13, 2006
I mean Elliot carter has been unjustly accused of "disjointed UNtonal schemeing music", , and other sharp criticisms, all of which is unfair, as these complaints are comming from the Tchaikovsky fans, who are too stringent in their tastes.
But here Legeti in this solo piano music has yet once again( as in all his music) showes himself stuck in some mode of writing which cannot seem to break away from his Nazi perscution days. Its a mix of self pity, anger, loathing of life, muisc that goes no where. its all as if Legeti is writing for himself, all out of his ego. For some reason his loyal fans, minute in numbers though this group is, are fiercely dedicated to preserving the Ligeti Legacy. "long live Ligeti" is their cry.
Just read the "stunning" reviews on all Ligeti's releases to know who are these Ligeti devotees.
Notice that you do not see one of these Legeti fans postinga comment on Elliot carter's incredible muisc, which is true art, as it transcends Carter's ego= uissues from Carter's creative unconscious...., whereas Legeti's music is nothing but "ligeti's ego".
I realize the great suffering Ligeti underwent by the nazi', but should that give him a "free pass" from fair criticism. Notice none of the positive reviews even dare mention a blantant characteristic of Legeti's music, its 'obnoxious tonal character", these bonifide Ligeti fans should at the very least give a fair forwarning "though I love his muisc, it MIGHT NOT be for your taste".
Ligeti seems to take the idea of not just composing for new forms, but destroying anything from which he may have learned from.
Sorry, but I'm content with Schonberg, Berg, Webern and especailly with Elliot carter avaliable, I have no need for Legeti's "peculiar" if not down right odd ideas.
|
| |
|
![Up (4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V%2Beipy8-L._SL75_.jpg "Up (4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD) [Blu-ray]")
![Across the Universe [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51T24FuHPEL._SL75_.jpg "Across the Universe [Blu-ray]")
![Underworld Trilogy (Underworld / Underworld: Evolution / Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F27VzUl%2BL._SL75_.jpg "Underworld Trilogy (Underworld / Underworld: Evolution / Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) [Blu-ray]")
![Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RQUEopdlL._SL75_.jpg "Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour [Blu-ray]")
