György Ligeti

For her fourth album on Naïve, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja joins forces with composer/conductor Peter Eötvös, and her program of modern violin concertos is marvelously cohesive and direct. The three works by Béla Bartók, Eötvös, and György Ligeti reveal connections in style and substance drawn from a common heritage, built on the rhythms and colors of Hungarian folk music and communicated through innovative orchestration that incorporates extended techniques.

The star pianist Yuja Wang releases her latest album with the live recording of her concert from April 2022 at the Vienna Konzerthaus. The eclectic program displays once more Wang’s fiery virtuosity, musical imagination and mature musicality in both lesser known and recognised masterpieces by Albéniz, Beethoven, Ligeti and Scriabin. The pianist commented on the selection: “I believe that every program should have its own life and reflect my current feelings.”

Virtuoso cellist Rohan de Saram's new album features four works which have come to the forefront of repertoire for solo cello from the modern era: Arnold Bax's Rhapsodic Ballad is his only solo piece for this instrument. Likely the most often performed of his earlier works, Ligeti's Sonata for Solo Cello has for over a decade been used as a test piece for the Rostropovich Competition in Paris. Dallapiccola's composition was written for the Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassado. It is a substantial, powerful work, and an early serial composition of the composer, full of colourful effects and humour.

Italian sisters Natascia and Raffaella Gazzana deliver a sensitively performed survey of French music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, alongside a nod to modern Hungarian composer György Ligeti. They place Franck’s monumental Sonata in A Major at the heart of their program, its second movement Allegro blazing with passion, the final Allegretto beautifully restrained yet unleashed in the closing bars. Ravel’s Sonate Posthume is a fascinating document of a 22-year-old composer’s development, in thrall to early Impressionism, while Messiaen’s equally youthful “Thème et Variations,” played with sparkling clarity and poise, shows a composer ahead of his time. Ligeti’s direct musical language functions almost as a refreshing sorbet among the French riches.

On his third PENTATONE album Time Traveler’s Suite, pianist Inon Barnatan redefines our notions of the suite by taking us on a journey through time and space, from Baroque pieces by Bach, Handel, Rameau and Couperin to more recent works by Ravel, Barber, Adès and Ligeti. The program culminates in Brahms’s ingenious Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel.

The star pianist Yuja Wang releases her latest album with the live recording of her concert from April 2022 at the Vienna Konzerthaus. The eclectic program displays once more Wang’s fiery virtuosity, musical imagination and mature musicality in both lesser known and recognised masterpieces by Albéniz, Beethoven, Ligeti and Scriabin. The pianist commented on the selection: “I believe that every program should have its own life and reflect my current feelings.”

Following on from their critically acclaimed debut album (Métamorphoses: Haydn, Ligeti & Brahms), the Dudok Kwartet Amsterdam returns to the Resonus label with a compelling programme of works around the theme of counterpoint & labyrinth.

Yuja Wang is one of the most technically astounding pianists of our time, with a command of the keyboard matched by sheer muscular strength. Here she turns her attention to Russia and some of its leading pianist-composers. The Rachmaninoff Preludes and Études-Tableaux are rich and swirl with passion, while Scriabin’s Tenth Sonata, a work of mystical imaginings, seethes with dangerous life under her fingers. Briefly looking further afield, a group of Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s tiny Études diverts the attention magically before Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata, his masterpiece in the form, which Wang characterizes with genuine originality and imagination.

The Ensemble intercontemporain and its new music director Pierre Bleuse pay homage to György Ligeti, whose birth centenary we celebrated in 2023: ‘Ligeti is one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century and certainly one of those who first made a powerful aesthetic impact on me personally!… This recording, my very first with the Ensemble intercontemporain, which combines concertos and chamber music, highlights the EIC’s qualities as soloists and chamber musicians. And I’m not forgetting that Ligeti is an integral part of the repertoire of the Ensemble, which has performed his works extensively…

The Ensemble intercontemporain and its new music director Pierre Bleuse pay homage to György Ligeti, whose birth centenary we celebrated in 2023: ‘Ligeti is one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century and certainly one of those who first made a powerful aesthetic impact on me personally!… This recording, my very first with the Ensemble intercontemporain, which combines concertos and chamber music, highlights the EIC’s qualities as soloists and chamber musicians. And I’m not forgetting that Ligeti is an integral part of the repertoire of the Ensemble, which has performed his works extensively…