DiscountDelight - The Ligeti Project IV: Hamburg Concerto (Horn Concerto) / Double Concerto / Ramifications / Requiem

In the "Hamburg Concerto" (1998) Ligeti presents a work which seems superficially simple and common, but which teems with inventiveness underneath. Primarily for horns, it also contains an lovely harp interruption, and the drumming seems inspired by the African music which the composer explored in the 90's. Though he is quite old now and has a 60-year career behind him, Ligeti continues to write interesting music and remains as strong as ever.

The "Double Concerto" (1972) is an exploration of the differences between flute and oboe. It begans as a quite soothing piece, but in its first movement grows to mournfulness through solitary sustained high notes. The second movement is more lively with a great deal of orchestral involvement. "Ramifications" (1968-69) is a minor work in which half of its twelve solo strings are tunes a quarter-tone lower than the other half. Ligeti then explores the surreal interaction among the strings. The performance here seems solid, but I find its recording too "dark", and prefer the Ensemble Intercontemporain/Pierre Boulez performance, recently reissued by Deutsche Grammaphon, which is considerably clearer.

For all that comes before it, "Requiem" (1963-65) is clearly the highest point of the disc. The complexity and power of the piece makes it a real chef d'oeuvre. Beginning with a slow "Introitus", the work moves into a stunning "Kyrie", in which the threatening murmurs of over 100 singers create a complex web of sound occasionally broken by ingenious orchestral interruptions. The following "De die judicii" is dedicated mainly to the idiosyncratic vocal experimentations of solo soprano and mezzo-soprano. The piece ends with ever diminished strength, as if symbolising the one being laid to rest. Though this piece acheived popularity through its use in the final portion of Kubrick's "2001", I find this live version from 2002 to be much better than the first performance of the 60's.

My only complaints about the CD concern the liner notes. The English translation of Ligeti's (German language) comments is not so faithful to the original. There are also a couple of ads in the booklet.

This is a must-have disc for fans of Ligeti, and an ideal starting-place for The Ligeti Project. The glorious new "Requiem" brings me back frequently.

The Hamburg Concerto continues Ligeti's recent interest in clashing tuning systems within a basically tonal, post-Bartokian musical language. It's ostensibly in seven movements, but as many of these movements are clearly multipartite (for example 'Solo, Intermezzo, Mixtur, Kanon') it is probably fairer to regard it as a fourteen-minute, fourteen-movement collection of miniatures. It's a highly entertaining work, given a tremendous performance here, though I wish Ligeti had developed some of the ideas within it to a greater extent. (For those who heard the original version of this work, a new finale has been appended onto the end of it, and this rounds the work off much more effectively than the original finale did.)

The Double Concerto, for flute, oboe and orchestra, is something of a minor work within Ligeti's ouevre. It explores clashing microtones within the various instrumental parts, in a two movement form where the first movement focuses around slow drift and the second contains much more surface activity. The solo instruments are often submerged within the orchestral writing, and do not play a soloistic role as in the Hamburg Concerto. Despite the outstanding performance here--Heinz Holliger's oboe playing is as stunning as ever--this strikes me as more of a retread of 1960s Ligeti works than a major work in its own right.

Ramifications is a short work for 12 solo strings in two groups, one tuned a quarter-tone above each other. Ligeti's intention in this piece was that the pitches of the two groups would tend to shift towards each other in performance, creating a haze of shimmering harmonies.

The disc ends with the Requiem, one of Ligeti's greatest works. Only setting four parts of the Requiem Mass--Introitus, Kyrie, Dies Irae and Lacrimosa--Ligeti explicitly does without the later, consolatory aspects of the liturgy. The Introitus begins mysteriously, unison bass voices intoning the words against bass instruments, with a gradual crescendo and rise in pitch throughout the movement. The Kyrie is a polyphonic tour de force, multiple canons creating powerful bands of sound that surround the listener with an aural haze, before leading into the apocalyptically violent Dies Irae. The work closes with a slow setting of the Lacrimosa, low and high voices surrounding delicate orchestral touches. This is a very fine recording, with outstanding sound. Even if I find the original Wergo recording by Michael Gielen marginally superior--at least if you can get it on LP: the disappointing CD remastering seriously affects the sound quality--nobody will be disappointed by Nott's version here.

The music here is not as consistently great as in some of the previous issues in this series--only the Requiem is absolutely essential Ligeti--but the performances are good throughout. Recommended without question to Ligeti fans, but those new to the composer would be better off first trying the Sony recording of the Etudes or Volume III in this edition.

The new recording of the "Double Concerto" (composed in 1972) features Heinz Holliger on oboe, generally acknowledged to be the most accomplished player of his instrument today, along with Jacques Zoon on flute. "Ramifications" was presented in two versions on a Wergo disc, for 12 solo strings, and with orchestra -- LP4 presents only the 12 strings version. Finally, my personal favorite for this recording, a new version of "Requiem" (composed in 1963-5), part of which was used for the soundtrack of Kubrick's "2001." The complete recording was previously available on Wergo, but I had not heard it before -- it resembles "Lux Aeterna," but includes wisps of orchestra in addition to the solo and choral voices. Jonathan Nott conducts the Berlin Philharmonic here, superb again as on the LP2 disc, which presents all orchestral works. LP4 is not the place to start if you're investigating Ligeti, I'd say (I recommend LP2 or perhaps LP1), but it is a fine album, and indispensable for Ligeti collectors.