Ligeti: String Quartets & Duets

Sony's "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition 1: String Quartets and Duos" is the first disc of the 13-volume series--continued after the 8th installment by Teldec's "The Ligeti Project"---of Gyorgy Ligeti's collected works in performances overseen by the composer itself. It collects his impressive two strings quartets, a brief birthday greeting to another composer, a work inspired by an ethnomusical stint in Romania, and another early work. The works are performed by the Arditti Quartet, who have done so much to provide satisfying and lasting performances of modern string repetoire.

String Quartet No. 1 ("Metamorphoses nocturnes") was written between 1953 and 1954, as the composer was struggling to express himself creatively in Stalinist Hungary. The work shows clear inspiration from Bartok's third and fourth quartets, which Ligeti knew only from their score as they had been suppressed. Similarly, Ligeti had no hope his own work would be performed, and it was written essentially "for his desk drawer". Ironically, when Ligeti submitted the piece to a Western competition, it was deemed too traditional for recognition. This first string quartet is a study in the juxtaposition of unlike sections; under a thin verneer of normality, the music is heterogenous. I think this is a fine work, and it is one of the composer's few pre-emigration pieces that do not sound like juvenalia in comparison with his later works.

String Quartet No. 2 (1968) was composed long after Ligeti's move to the West and so is entirely avant-garde, linked with the techniques of his other works of the 1960's. Ligeti was quite proud of this piece, claiming it as his favourite of his works of the time, and feeling that he had made a permanent contribution to the string quartet tradition. The work is indeed a part of his micropolyphonic style of the 1960's, but there is a great deal more here. It is a twitching, paranoid, nervous, neurotic piece with a grimy, constantly shifting texture, like the soundtrack to a Kafka story. It really must be heard to be believed, and this second quartet is the high point of this disc.

"Hommage a Hilding Rosenburg" for violin and cello (1982) is a short birthday greeting to that Swedish composer. It is the least important work on the disc and is really nothing more than something of a fanfare.

"Balada si joc" for two violins (Romanian "Ballad and dance", 1950) is a short string duet inspired by Ligeti's time spent in Romania collecting folk music during his music studies. The result uses no actual folk material, but is an authentic imitation of the music Ligeti encountered both in his boyhood and in his return to Transylvania at this later time. When it was later expanded to use an orchestra, it became the first two movements of his "Concert Romanesc" (found on "The Ligeti Project II"). The string duet, however, manages to create with but two instruments nearly the same moving passion as the later orchestration. The following "Andante and Allegretto" for string quartet (1950) is another early work, again inspired by folk music. It is not as successful as "Balada si joc", indeed even forgettable.

While there are other recordings of these works available, such as the recent recordings reissued in Deutsche Grammaphon's "Echo 20/21" series, this performance by the Arditti Quartet can certainly be seen as definitive. It takes a lot of talent to please Ligeti, one of the most demanding composers, especially in a crushingly difficult work like the second string quartet.

While I think "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition 3: Piano Works" or "The Ligeti Project IV" are better places to begin on this series of Ligeti's collected works, this set of string works should be one of the first Ligeti works you buy, especially for the String Quartet No. 2.

This recording is my first venture into the chamber music of Ligeti, though I have loved the orchestral and choral music for years. This is a beautiful recording of some of the most important string music of the last 50 years comparable in originality only to the Scelsi quartet cycle.

String Quartet No. 1 was written under the influence of the Bartok middle period quartets, though Ligeti only knew them from the scores, as they were banned under communist rule. Though the Bartok influence can be heard in the first quartet, this is Ligeti's own music, not Bartok's. The work succeeds on it's own merits. It's formally adventurous and the melodic motives are striking.

The real reason to get this CD is the Quartet No. 2. This later work extends Ligeti's method of micropolyphony to the chamber medium with spectacular results. The work is no longer about melody harmony and form...rather it is a work that transforms from texture to texture, rather like an electronic piece. It is aurally stunning and deeply emotional, not something that most avent-gardists manage to pull off well.

The disc is rounded off by a duet for two stringed instruments and two folk inspired pieces from Ligeti's early career in Romania. They are delightful, if not as important as the string quartets.

If you are a fan of avant-garde string music, buy this CD...now!You might also enjoy the boxed set of the string quartets of Gianocinto Scelsi. Ligeti and Scelsi went in parallel directions musically, and though the results are different, they are mutually enlightening.

György Ligeti se está convirtiendo en los últimos años en el "principal compositor vivo", tras los fallecimientos de Messiaen y Lutoslawsky. Sin duda, Ligeti cuenta con todos los merecimientos para recibir este honor: amplio catálogo, voz propia, variedad, calidad y "cierta accesibilidad". Los cuartetos que aquí nos ocupan forman parte del núcleo fuerte de su obra. Ya se ha dicho repetidamente la filiación del primero "Metamorfosis Nocturnas" respecto de los últimos cuartetos de Bartók, llegando a afirmarse que podría pasar por el séptimo de éste último. En cuanto al segundo cuarteto es un alarde de inventiva a la par que un completo resumen de las inquietudes del húngaro durante la década de los sesenta, utilizando procedimientos que ya hallamos en muchas de sus obras orquestales de la época. Cada movimiento es un mundo aparte y muestra a las claras que vanguardismo, calidad y capacidad de fascinación no son conceptos excluyentes. ¿Qué decir del Arditti Quartet, única formación que, hasta el momento, se ha atrevido con ambas obras?. Se trata de una interpretación magistral, superior a la que ya ofrecieron en su grabación para el sello Wergo hace ya algunos años. Además este disco incluido en la serie Ligeti Edition incluye algunos piezas menores no grabadas hasta este momento que aumentan su atractivo. Por cierto ¿a qué se debe el parón de esta serie?. En prácticamente dos años solamente ha salido al mercado la nueva versión de la ópera "El gran macabro".