Ligeti reviews

Hard on the heels of the disc by Les Siècles (see March issue, p92), comes another fine all-Ligeti CD, again including the Chamber Concerto of 1969-70. The main focus here is on Ligeti’s activity as a concerto composer, and only Melodien – described by him as ‘iridescent and metallic music with celesta, glockenspiel and crotales colouring it as though with gold dust’ – falls outside this category.

Ernest Bloch composed his three unaccompanied Cello Suites for the charismatic performer Zara Nelsova during the late 1950s when he was living in retirement at Agate Beach in Oregon. In contrast to the exotic and consciously Hebraic modes of expression he exploited in famous works such as Schelomo, these Suites are more ascetic and emotionally elusive. They draw inspiration from Bach in their multi-movement structure, which presents a sequence of contrasting slow and declamatory sections with faster and more rhythmically charged material.

The ‘Labyrinth’ title of this enterprising disc was suggested by the music’s intricate counterpoint – from the brilliant fusion of sonata form and fugal writing in the finale of Mozart’s G major Quartet K387, to the micropolyphony of Ligeti’s Quartet No. 2 and the puzzle-canons (some of them incomplete) written as exercises by Bach. For these last pieces the Dudok Quartet of Amsterdam is joined by a group of colleagues.

These brilliantly original works are among Ligeti’s most familiar and approachable, and the Six Bagatelles and Ten Pieces are now cornerstones of the wind quintet repertoire – even though the Bagatelles are actually highly skilful transcriptions of piano pieces from Musica ricercata, written in the early 1950s. The Ten Pieces, composed nearly two decades later, display the Alice in Wonderland side of Ligeti, and carry such evocative movement-headings as Prestissimo minaccioso e burlesco’ and Presto bizarro.

Superb acounts of Ligeti’s mesmerising Lux aeterna and the wildly beautiful Hölderlin Fantasies. Peter Heppener’s Im Gestein may not be quite so radically individual, but it also scintillates and stirs. 

Stephen Johnson

Haydn and Ligeti? The mix isn’t as startling as you might think. The imagination, humour and whimsy of both composers make them happy companions in the sparkling musicianship of Shai Wosner and Nicholas Collon. Two Haydn piano concertos enjoy a welcome airing – too often Haydn is overshadowed in programming choice elsewhere by his friend Mozart – and Ligeti’s concerto should unquestionably be a staple part of the repertoire, were it not such a challenge to put it together.

'Haydn and Ligeti share imagination, humour and whimsy'

Haydn • Ligeti

Shai Wosner (piano); Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Collon

Haydn: Concerto No 4 in G, Concerto No. 11 in D, Carpriccio in G, 'Acht Sauschneider müssen sein'; Capriccio (Fantasia) in C

Ligeti: Capriccio Nos 1 & 2; Piano Concerto

Onyx ONYX 4174

Does any work begin more quietly than Ligeti’s Cello Concerto? The soloist creeps in at pppppppp, and Nicolas Altstaedt manages a more restrained attack than any I’ve heard on disc, which creates its own problems: the studio acoustic is almost louder than the music for the first quarter of a minute. But the stasis of the music is beautifully caught, and, although nothing much seems to happen, it exerts a strong grip. The more ghostly flutterings which start the second movement only gradually give the music momentum before subsiding back into silence.

Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani contrasts and connects the keyboard works of William Byrd, Bach and Ligeti in this concert recital recorded at London’s Wigmore Hall. In his liner notes – eloquent as his playing – Esfahani dubs Byrd ‘the father of Bach and Beethoven and Chopin and Liszt’. Certainly the opening sequence captures the gamut of Byrd’s genius, as battle pieces sit cheek by jowl with courtly dances, variations on 16th-century pop songs give way to cerebral and intricate fantasias or spiritual musings on plainchants.