György Ligeti (1923-2006)

[George]

George turned me onto this SQ today, having never heard anything by Ligeti. I was floored by the music, alternatingly despairing and lashing. Absolutley riveting. George has since told me tha the Arditti set is great, and I hope to grab that one soon (cheap too).

So glad you liked it and even more glad that it's affordable for you.

[MDL]

Has anyone heard the recent Naxos CD of the string quartets? It had some good reviews and it's obviously really cheap, but I've got the DG Hagen/La Salle recordings and I'm not sure if I need new versions of these works.

[Sid]

Has anyone heard the recent Naxos CD of the string quartets? It had some good reviews and it's obviously really cheap, but I've got the DG Hagen/La Salle recordings and I'm not sure if I need new versions of these works.

The Naxos recording (with the Parker Quartet) play well. This has been the first (and only)version of these works I have heard, and I have found them very idiomatic (to use the reviewer's jargon). There is a shorter work for SQ accompanying the two quartets on the disc (called Andante and Allegretto). It is an early work and tonal, interesting because it makes me think of the earlier generation like Kodaly (& maybe Vaughan Williams). It sounds nothing like what Ligeti came to be later. If you have other good version/s of the two quartets, then you don't really need this one, unless you want another "take" on this music, but otherwise you might want it for the less known bonus track...

[Scarpia]

Well, moving from the first to the second quartet, I must say I find myself at something of a loss.  To quote Ligeti himself in the notes "There is no long any motivic writing in this music, no contours, only sound textures."  The first question that comes to mind, is this actually music, as the term is normally defined?  The second question, if it is music, why would anyone write music like this?  What value is there defining music by what it lacks (motives, contours)?  I have no idea what these sounds are supposed to be saying to me.

[snyprrr]

I have no idea what these sounds are supposed to be saying to me.

Enjoy the air conditioning! ,... cause it's cooooool

[Mirror Image]

The general problem I have with Ligeti is I don't know where his music is heading. It just sounds like an awash of sounds and textures, which for some this might be great while for others, like myself, finds it irritating.

I have the highest recommended box set of his orchestral works (I don't care about his chamber or solo instrumental works) on Teldec. I should try to go back and listen to his music some more. I don't want to close the door completely, but from what I've heard so far, it has been musical nonsense.

[Sid]

...(I don't care about his chamber or solo instrumental works)...

I think that your exclusively devoting yourself to the orchestral works may be part of the reason you are having a 'blockage' with Ligeti. I think that his chamber and solo instrumental works (eg. Chamber Concerto, Ramifications, String Quartets, Bagatelles, Horn Trio, Etudes) are some of the most engaging in his output. Not to speak of the a Capella choral works like Lux Aeterna, as well as the Requiem, which has instrumental accompaniment. If you want a "back door" into his opera (Le Grand Macabre), listen to the short and quirky Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures. You may need to listen to some of these works to get a fuller picture of this amazing (& versatile) composer. Not all of his works are the same as his Atmospheres or the solo concertos. Take a look around & discover the variety, then go back to the orchestral stuff to gain a better understanding. I must admit that I am more "turned on" by his non-orchestral stuff, he really had a nack for writing for smaller forces, as well as for the human voice (revivifying choral traditions of the past)...

[MDL]

The general problem I have with Ligeti is I don't know where his music is heading. It just sounds like an awash of sounds and textures, which for some this might be great while for others, like myself, finds it irritating.

I'm a complete musical amateur and so have no idea about harmonic progression or any of those big grown-up concepts, but even I can sense that Lontano, far from being a wash of sounds and textures, is a piece that works its way through a musical argument every bit as purposeful and inexorable as a Bruckner or Mahler adagio.

[AndyD.]

I'm a complete musical amateur and so have no idea about harmonic progression or any of those big grown-up concepts, but even I can sense that Lontano, far from being a wash of sounds and textures, is a piece that works its way through a musical argument every bit as purposeful and inexorable as a Bruckner or Mahler adagio.

I think Lontano is fascinating. It might come down to breaking through one's preconceptions about what constitutes music. For many folks, music means motivic development, repetition, sonata form. Beethoven's late string quartets helped to begin the push beyond that. I think the post Tristan und Isolde composers (Mahler, Bruckner, Schoenberg, Bartok, Ligeti, Richard Strauss) really helped music by taking the experiments that LvB and Wagner pioneered, and riding them out into even more dangerous (read: "exciting") highways.

Without experimentation, music for me would be phenomenally boring.

[Scarpia]

I think Lontano is fascinating. It might come down to breaking through one's preconceptions about what constitutes music. For many folks, music means motivic development, repetition, sonata form. Beethoven's late string quartets helped to begin the push beyond that. I think the post Tristan und Isolde composers (Mahler, Bruckner, Schoenberg, Bartok, Ligeti, Richard Strauss) really helped music by taking the experiments that LvB and Wagner pioneered, and riding them out into even more dangerous (read: "exciting") highways.

Without experimentation, music for me would be phenomenally boring.

Experimentation is critical, but what I am having trouble getting past is discarding essential characteristics of music, rather than using it in a new way.    To quote Ligeti himself (again)

There is no long any motivic writing in this music, no contours, only sound textures

What is left when you abolish motivic writing and contours?  Texture, I guess.  Ligeti's first quartet had interesting textures along with free chromatic counterpoint, sort of in the Bartok string quartet style.  In the second quartet he lost me.

Another thing that strikes me, is that if your goal is the creation of textures, what is the point of writing a string quartet?   The point of a string quartet is to have four individual voices which create a more or less homogeneous texture but whose clarity allows a musical conversation to occur.

[karlhenning]

Another thing that strikes me, is that if your goal is the creation of textures, what is the point of writing a string quartet?

One possible answer, I suppose, is to write in that method, employing the timbral resources of the string quartet.

[AndyD.]

What is left when you abolish motivic writing and contours?  Texture, I guess.  Ligeti's first quartet had interesting textures along with free chromatic counterpoint, sort of in the Bartok string quartet style.  In the second quartet he lost me.

Another thing that strikes me, is that if your goal is the creation of textures, what is the point of writing a string quartet?   The point of a string quartet is to have four individual voices which create a more or less homogeneous texture but whose clarity allows a musical conversation to occur.

These are all excellent points. But I wonder if maybe Ligeti was more concerned with creating new vistas in string quartet writing with no.2.  In other words, the point might have been that he was attempting to add to the definition of what makes a "string quartet", introducing fresh variables ready made to be incorporated, assimilated into future string quartet compositions. I mean, without Beethoven's opus 130, perhaps string quartet writing (shoot, perhaps all of music composition itself) might have been doomed to repeating the strictly defined sonata style ad infinitum (yawn).

One possible answer, I suppose, is to write in that method, employing the timbral resources of the string quartet.

This is another helpful perspective.

[Scarpia]

One possible answer, I suppose, is to write in that method, employing the timbral resources of the string quartet.

Well yes, the question is why.  It seems like a waste of resources to have four conservatory trained musicians, playing instruments that have been treasured and cared for since they were made in the 18th century, making sounds that sound like fingernails on a chalkboard (literally).   

[Scarpia]

These are all excellent points. But I wonder if maybe Ligeti was more concerned with creating new vistas in string quartet writing with no.2.  In other words, the point might have been that he was attempting to add to the definition of what makes a "string quartet", introducing fresh variables ready made to be incorporated, assimilated into future string quartet compositions. I mean, without Beethoven's opus 130, perhaps string quartet writing (shoot, perhaps all of music composition itself) might have been doomed to repeating the strictly defined sonata style ad infinitum (yawn).

That's the point.  Ligeti's second quartet doesn't strike me as an extension, so much as a contraction of the string quartet.  It's just boring.  I don't hear much in the way of texture that I haven't heard in other adventurous string quartets (including Ligeti's first).  Those quartets were using texture to present a musical idea in a weird way.  Now the idea is gone and the weird texture is all that's left.  The only idea that comes across to me is "it's not over yet."

[Mirror Image]

Without experimentation, music for me would be phenomenally boring.

I don't have anything against experiementation as long as the end result is something musical.

[karlhenning]

Well, I must really listen to the quartet myself, before I have aught else to add ; )

[AndyD.]

Well yes, the question is why.  It seems like a waste of resources to have four conservatory trained musicians, playing instruments that have been treasured and cared for since they were made in the 18th century, making sounds that sound like fingernails on a chalkboard (literally).   

Or maybe all those resources added up to something completely new and thus really exciting? Just speculating.

Or, they went through all that training, and ended up being trained further by Ligeti's string quartet.

That's the point.  Ligeti's second quartet doesn't strike me as an extension, so much as a contraction of the string quartet.  It's just boring.  I don't hear much in the way of texture that I haven't heard in other adventurous string quartets.  Those quartets were using texture to present a musical idea in a weird way.  Now the idea is gone and the weird texture is all that's left.  The only idea that comes across to me is "it's not over yet."

Vive le difference! I respect what you're saying, and I can hear what you mean. 

For me, it's tremendously exciting and inspiring.

I don't have anything against experiementation as long as the end result is something musical.

But again, we're back to the definition of "musical": whether something "musical" has to fall under rules. Maybe it's because I'm a cantankerous person, but that doesn't work for me. Rules can be for fools. Just my opinion.

Well, I must really listen to the quartet myself, before I have aught else to add ; )

I'd personally love to hear your thoughts, and enjoy where this thread has gone in general. Really interesting for me at least.

[Scarpia]

Vive le difference! I respect what you're saying, and I can hear what you mean. 

For me, it's tremendously exciting and inspiring.

Well, it may be premature for me to give up on this piece, it is certainly premature to give up on Ligeti, I responded very positively to his first quartet.   But I'll probably list to other music by Ligeti before trying too hard on that second quartet.  I recently got the Teldec "Ligeti Project" set and will be poking around in it in the near future.

[AndyD.]

  I recently got the Teldec "Ligeti Project" set and will be poking around in it in the near future.

Heyyy, that sounds really good! Please keep us posted!

[Mirror Image]

But again, we're back to the definition of "musical": whether something "musical" has to fall under rules. Maybe it's because I'm a cantankerous person, but that doesn't work for me. Rules can be for fools. Just my opinion.

For me, music is rhythm, harmony, melody, and structure. These is not about rules in my opinion. This is about my own perceptions of what I consider music. All great composers break the theoretical rules of music everyday, so this is nothing new. That's not the issue with me. What is the issue is the music itself and how it sounds to me, which in Ligeti's case like calculated noise. I don't have anything against dissonance, I like Berg for crying out loud, but what do have something against is music that lacks direction and doesn't have anything to latch onto.

I don't have anything against Ligeti. If people like him, then that's great, but not everybody enjoys the same composers. I'm simply just sharing my impressions of what I've heard and what I continue to hear in his music.