György Ligeti (1923-2006)
Alex Ross has the sad news. Rather than weep for the loss, let’s celebrate that we had him at all. Here are ten reasons why Ligeti’s output was and is so important:
1. Harmony. There are occasional systems in Ligeti’s music, but no twelve-tone rows or synthetic scales. Every combination of pitches was approved on a sensuous basis. Ligeti’s ear was so acute that he could write anything from the most blackly dissonant textures (Requiem) to added-note sugar (Arc-en-ciel) and always be authentic.
2. Rhythm. While Ligeti has written some of the most gorgeous rubato music in history (Melodien), in the 1970’s he embraced the motor of minimalism (Three Pieces for Two Pianos) and in the 1980’s the complexities of African Pygmy music (Piano Concerto, Piano Etudes) without demeaning himself or the sources.
3. Folklore. His Transylvanian/Hungarian background is the source of his juvenilia (Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet, Concert Românesc). Much later (Sonata for Solo Viola, Horn Trio) this passionate accent returned transmuted, showing us that the folklore was there all along.
4. Theatre. Even his non-staged, non-vocal work has dramatic power (Horn Trio), but Ligeti had no problem exploiting the stage to provocative purposes. He packaged some of the most abstruse sounds ever conceived as surrealistic hilarity (Aventures and Nouvelle Aventures), and his lone opera (Le Grande Macabre) explores surrealism to the utmost.
5. Instrumental acuity. Performers often complain about how much of the music written by composers of Ligeti’s generation is so thankless to learn and play. Ligeti’s music is difficult, but he always wrote for the instrument, not against it. Most of his music has been recorded more than once, and you can always hear that even the most outrageous effects make sense--and that it was probably a pleasurable experience for the performer.
6. Piano. When we speak of piano studies, there are four members of the elect: Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, and Ligeti. Scores of pianists have already learned and recorded the Ligeti etudes, something that cannot be said of any other piano music composed in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
7. Intonation. Ligeti had long explored microtones (Ramifications, Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto), and in one of his last works, 2002’s Hamburg Concerto, Ligeti uses the innocent properties of natural horns in a diabolical fashion. He wrote: In the small orchestra there are four natural horns, each of which can produce the 2nd to the 16th overtone. By providing each horn or group of horns with different fundamentals I was able to construct novel sound spectra from the resulting overtones. These harmonies, which have never been used before, sound “weird” in relation to harmonic spectra. This is perhaps Ligeti’s last bequest: a new way of hearing natural overtones. On record, Hamburg Concerto seems modest. Live, it was astonishing.
8. Gateway. It is hard to listen to demanding modern music; even seasoned music professionals regard it as hard work. Ligeti is the most unpretentious and appealing entrance to the recalcitrant cavern of Dissonant Classical Music. He always wanted the listener to “get it,” always willing to hold the listener’s hand as he tells his abstruse story.
9. Thumbprint. No matter what he did, from setting 100 wind-up metronomes in motion (Poème Symphonique) to the lyrical lamentation of the Violin Concerto’s “Aria, Hoquetus, Choral,” Ligeti was instantly, unforgettably identifiable. Every scrap of his output bears the stamp: “This music could have been only been composed by György Ligeti.”
10. Commitment. A favorite word of Ligeti’s was “quality,” as in music of “high quality.” He gave every breath to make his creations have the loftiest of perspectives. There is no slack or filler anywhere. As a consequence, it is fairly easy to listen to all of Ligeti—less than 15 CDs contain his whole canon, and his mature work could fit on about 10 discs.
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Selected listening: The best recording of the Piano Etudes is by Fredrik Ullén on BIS, which is simply one the great piano recordings. Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s recording of the Etudes is good too (he was very close to Ligeti). Both of Aimard’s versions of the Piano Concerto are incredible--the one on Teldec with Reinbert De Leeuw is probably better, and it is coupled with Melodien and the miraculous Chamber Concerto.
The recent recording of the Requiem by Jonathan Nott is excellent, but maybe the old Wergo with Michael Gielen is even more emotional. The Arditti’s performance of the Second String Quartet is a must. The Violin Concerto with either Saschko Gawriloff or Frank Peter Zimmerman is Ligeti at his most accessible, whereas the densities of San Francisco Polyphony and Double Concerto are extremely difficult (Lontano a little less so). The Horn Trio exists in several good recordings, but the Sonata for Solo Viola should be heard being played by the dedicatee, Tabea Zimmermann.
Richard Toop’s book, György Ligeti is a good basic biography, but Richard Steinitz’s György Ligeti: Music of the Imagination has much more for those wishing to find out exactly how Ligeti generated his pieces.
If you possess a recording of György Ligeti's monumental and devastating Requiem, now is the time to listen to it. Play it loud.
