Review: Sony's Budget Ligeti Box
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- OK, you don't get the words in the vocal works (and there's an entire opera in here--Le Grand Macabre), but the performances are all splendid, and with nine discs at budget price you really can't go wrong. Yes, the music is challenging, but Ligeti was a genius and his fascinating creative mind is everywhere in evidence.
It's not easy music, but not punishing either- it's rewarding! One of the most brilliant and singular composers of the past century. Not without a subtle sense of humor at times in his work. I've gone long stretches without listening to discs of his work (I have a bunch) but always am fulfilled when I return to them. He has a beautiful, pellucid tombstone, BTW, you can view it online. He truly embodies the ethos of 'sound consciousness' (actually the name of a class I took in college once, before I consciously knew what it was!).
“If you want easy - go elsewhere”😊. Thanks for the introduction, Dave.
I think I'm going to listen to some Ligeti now. You've given me a really splendid idea for tonight. Short but sweet presentation, very nice. Thank you
The complete Ligeti edition was shared between Teldec & Sony - this boxset is essentially Sony's part plus Le Grand Macabre under Salonen. The Teldec portion has mostly orchestral works, indlung the Concerti
Right.
It's a fabulous collection. I have the original releases which give us Ligeti's own liner notes. If you complement it with Teldec's "The Ligeti Project" (the de facto continuation of the Sony) and Aimard's CD "African Rhythms" you'll have his complete works almost always supervised by himself. It's a marvel!
Agree completely and I have the same combination as you. His liner notes are fascinating!
You can also add "Clear or Cloudy" DG 4CD boxset to your collection.
I remember vividly when I was a teenager and I used to listen to Ligeti violin concerto while I was waiting to get a haircut. One of my favourite composers, even if I don't listen to it as much.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard recorded the final 3 Ligeti etudes on a CD called "African Rhythms" alongside music from Steve Reich and Aka Pygmies
How about a survey of Messiaen organ cycles? Surely people are lining up for that one?
Sorry. It's already sold out.
There is a Teldec 5 cd box who completes this one. Sony had gave up the project and Teldec had followed. There is the orchestral stuff including Atmosphères of course and the conertos.
1. Dave's message appears to be that anyone who loves this composer's music should immediately order this box set 'Ligeti split.'
2. I recommend listening to his Lux Aeterna when you're in the kitchen cleaning an interminable stack of dishes with Lux Lemon Dishwashing Soap.
3. Since:
(A) Ligeti was born in 1923 in Transylvania, Romania that later became part of Hungary
- and -
(B) he composed the poly-rhythmic Hungarian Rock for harpsichord in 1978,
- then -
(C) was he finally able to provide the long awaited and definitive answer to the question posed by Bobby 'Boris' Pickett in his 1962 chart topping smash hit Monster Mash: "Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?"
Finally, Dave speaks more about Ligeti. Thank you!...
Inspired by Dave, I’m listening to the “mechanical music” disc that’s in here. “Continuum” is actually rather easier to take on the barrel organ than the harpsichord! And the études on the player piano(s) are really important as they create the effect of super-human virtuosity. Not that you’d get this set only for this disc, but all this might be hard to find any other way.
It’s interesting that although Ligeti did some electronica early after escaping Hungary (available in the teldec/Warner box) he thereafter avoided it in favour of more “clunky” and maybe fallible machines. He had a great deal of influence on various forms of popular music, ambient and electronica, which is one reason that, in my experience, Ligeti is still really appealing to younger music lovers. But he avoided computery stuff himself.
If anyone here is a bit iffy about him, but likes Bartok and wondered how that could develop in the future, I’d say Ligeti is the most important answer. If you bear in mind the importance of bartok here, it all becomes much more easy to take. Remember the barrel organ effect at the end of the 5th quarter! And I gather that it’s a joke going around that Ligeti’s first quartet is really Bartok’s 7th :) If you listen you’ll hear why.
I have the same feeling when I listen some of the works of Ligeti, him being a continuator and developer of Bartok language. Especially works from his first period.
Actually, I better understood his first quartet, only after I understood that it's in a way a further distillation of Bartok language. Of course, that is not to say that Ligeti wasn't his own man.
@@llucrescu9058 Of course he was his own man, but sometimes to get an orientation it’s helpful to know where someone is coming from. For example, I’m listening to Atmospheres right now and it sure does have some Bartokian sounds in it ! Not just the microintervals but the general inspiration of those night music pieces. And later on, he gets even more nostalgic for the Hungarian stuff, like in the Violin concerto or the sonata for solo viola. In the last of his orchestral works, the Hamburg Concerto for horn and four natural horns, we even get a movement that’s a distorted passage from Bartoks concerto for orchestra :) So he really developed all that but it’s always there somehow
The bagatelles for wind quintet have loads of tunes in them. They're very post-Bartok, with a bit of stravinskian neoclassicism.
OK, I grant that exception.
A german-language reviewer on Amazon gave the following 2-star review, translated into English: "There are some beautiful pieces by Ligeti that have been used in movies. I assumed that the complete work reproduces more of this aesthetic. Far missed. The majority of the pieces could be poinitert but aptly described with intestinal cramps of the Valkyrie and recruiting singing of the maniacs. The best pieces are still the arrangements of Hungarian folk music, in which Ligeti did not completely fart the original melodies." Listening to the vocal music CD in the collection, I have to think Ligeti would have approved of this review. I already have Fredrik Ullen's BIS recording of the complete piano music, but can't pass up all of the other goodies in this box.
we have all known, the people of our generation, the works of ligeti thanks to the 2001 film odyssey of space by stanley kubrick.... and the desire to know more about this composer.....
And if you could choose only one work by... Ligeti ? By the way, do you manage to include contemporary composers (dead or alive) in your serie of "only one work" ? That should be great :-)
Agree, but would be a tough assignment given the ways his style kept shifting..
@@murraylow4523 True. That adds to the challenge !
Good to see Sony has reissued this Sony set for those who didn’t collect the recordings the first (or second?) around. Now Warner should reissue the second part of the edition/project originally on Teldec.
Last time I checked the teldec box was still available
It is. I'll talk about it anon.
I’ve got the Ligeti Project box from years ago I’ll have to check this one out.
If you can find it, I recommend a previous version of this box with a red cover - this has the bonus of including all of Ligeti's notes from the individual CDs, but not the libretti unfortunately. He had a dry sense of humour and the notes are well worth reading.
@@horsedoctorman Thanks for that horse
@@horsedoctorman , and with both the Sony and the Warner boxes you have (almost) Ligeti's complete output.