György Ligeti

For its first recording for BIS Records, the Marmen Quartet tackles three major works from the twentieth-century string quartet literature. The two quartets by György Ligeti belong to two different periods in the composer’s output. Written before Ligeti left Hungary and emigrated to the West, the First, subtitled ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’, represents the peak of his ‘Hungarian’ period. Regarded as a virtuoso exercise, the work reveals the influences of Béla Bartók, particularly from his Third and Fourth Quartets.

For its first recording for BIS Records, the Marmen Quartet tackles three major works from the twentieth-century string quartet literature. The two quartets by György Ligeti belong to two different periods in the composer’s output. Written before Ligeti left Hungary and emigrated to the West, the First, subtitled ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’, represents the peak of his ‘Hungarian’ period. Regarded as a virtuoso exercise, the work reveals the influences of Béla Bartók, particularly from his Third and Fourth Quartets.

Keller Quartett - Ligeti String Quartets & Barber Adagio (2013) {ECM New Series}
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© 2013 ECM New Series | ECM 2197
Classical / Chamber Music

György Ligeti was a member in good standing of the musical avant-garde of the mid-20th century, while Samuel Barber was, at the same time, one of the most prominent neo-Romantic composers. They would seem to be an odd couple on this 2013 release on ECM New Series, for Ligeti's two string quartets and Barber's Molto adagio from the String Quartet No. 2 (known in various arrangements as "Barber's Adagio") appear to come from opposing camps, if not different worlds.

This is the fourth recording by Patricia Kopatchinskaja on naïve; the second in the concerto repertoire. The collaboration with conductor/composer Peter Eötvos and the programme is an intense series of connections. Between Bartok, Ligeti, Eotvos and Kopatchinskaja, there are many links: Hungary, the land of the 3 composers featured; Peter Eötvos was the conductor of the first performance of the second version of Ligeti violin concerto, in 1992, with Ensemble Modern; Patricia Kopatchinakaja and Peter Eötvös have been working together for 4 years, performing several concertos, including those recorded here.

Cathy Krier - Rameau & Ligeti (2014) {Deutschlandradio / Avi Service for music, Cologne}
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© 2014 Deutschlandradio / Avi Service for music, Cologne | 8553308
Classical / Baroque / Contemporary Classical / Piano

In 2014 we celebrate Jean-Philippe Rameau s 250th anniversary. To highlight his wonderful compositions, this disc also presents works by 20th-century musical pioneer Ligeti. Rameau and Ligeti have a similar approach to generating music, and their short pieces are of similar drama and effect. Krier steers her own path between sentimental and spiky, with a bright, forthright tone. “Does it make sense to combine the music of a French Baroque master with avant-garde works written in the 1950‘s? Can one place these two composers – Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) and György Ligeti (1923-2006) – side by side? Do they have anything in common, and, if so, how can such traits be viewed from the vantage points of two entirely different centuries?

BIS present a chronological exploration of the music of György Ligeti. The exploration begins with a brief piece for solo piano written when he was studying in Budapest and ends with his final compositions, also for solo piano. The disc highlights a number of works which demonstrate the kaleidoscopic qualities of the composer – from the sense of humour displayed in the Six Bagatelles to the otherworldliness of Lux Aeterna (used by Stanley Kubrick in his film 2001 – A Space Odyssey), and the sheer mass of Volumina for organ.

A selection of works which shows the courage to try the unusual: Ligeti’s Lux aeterna and Boyd’s As I crossed a bridge of dreams share a flowing of harmonic fields into one another as if in slow motion. On the other hand, Ligeti’s use of the technique of dividing an apparently endless flow of sound, with its related intervallic structures, into comprehensible periods, shows similarities to Scarlattis method of employing motives whose intervallic structure are interrelated. For Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen Gottwald transferred Ligeti’s technique of vocal writing to his arrangement of the Mahler Lied.