Ligeti Művei

[James]

Hey again folks,

György Ligeti composed ca.80  individual works, just was curious roughly how much of it folks here at GMG have absorbed? Pick the percentage that's approximately representative. 100% being most of it; 75% being roughly three quarters;  50% about half, et cetera .. 0% being under the 5% mark, meaning hardly anything or in fact nothing yet. My inquiring mind is curious and would like to know.

Thanks in advance.

[petrarch]

75%. I have about 50 of his works on CD. Between that and what else I have on mp3 and have listened to in concert results in some 70-75% coverage.

[kishnevi]

I've got about a third, I suppose, so I'll put 25 percent, even though it's actually more.

So you can make whatever mental adjustments you may want, here's the basic listing of what I have:
--the Warner box set of orchestral and choral works
--Aimard's recording of the Etudes (which I'm counting as one work for purposes of this thread)
--the string quartets

7 CDs worth of Ligeti all told, plus a second performance of the quartets for an actual total of 8

There are some piano recital CDs which include individual Etudes, but I'm not counting them.

[Todd]

A quick count of works puts me at around 35-40 works on disc, so about half.  Ligeti was one of the post-war greats.

[kishnevi]

So he's one of the modern masters that truly speaks to you or has a kind-of gravitational pull, yes?

Actually, no.  I happen to like the small scale (small in terms of instrumental forces) works--the quartets and piano pieces, but I dislike the larger works.  I got the box set in the spirit of experimentation, and dislike all but one work that's in there.  The exception is "Hungarian Concerto", which I'm sure you'll agree is not typical of Ligeti's overall output.   My working hypothesis at this moment is that Ligeti's methods worked much better with smaller forces than with larger ones.   Or else simply my ears like the one but not the other.

However, since there is Ligeti I like,  I do take out the box of orchestral works from time to time,  just to see if perhaps another hearing will change my opinion of those works.  And this thread makes me realize I ought to get the rest of his chamber works, at least.

[Mirror Image]

I'm probably around 75%. There's still a few things I haven't heard like his SQs and some vocal works. Other than that, I think I've pretty much covered everything from the solo piano works to the orchestral music to his lone opera to the Requiem and so on.