UbuWeb: an amazing resource

[bhodges]

Just finished watching this wonderful film, downloaded today. It's over an hour (629 mb) of beautiful footage and extended monologues from Ligeti himself - not telling me much I didn't know about already, perhaps, but finding the most pertinent shots, archive material etc. Very moving indeed, at times, especially in the lengthy sections about his childhood (close-up footage of an aged 'folk' violinist was particularly beautiful). It's in French - but I found Ligeti's French very easy to understand, perhaps because, though he is completely fluent, it is evidently not his mother tongue, and so he speaks deliberately and clearly.

The film comes from the extraordinary Ubuweb collection; their Ligeti film page also includes a 'performance' of the Poeme Symphonique for 100 metronomes. But I'd urge people to have a nose round this fabulous resource - there are real gems there for the unearthing.

I have to thank Luke for mentioning UbuWeb, which (insert red face here) I just discovered today.  After searching for information on Mauricio Kagel's Der Schall (1968) which is going to be performed by a group here tomorrow night, I stumbled across this site, which amazingly, has a complete performance of the piece, from Deutsche Grammophon's recording (the one below), part of its Avant Garde series.  (The Der Schall performance is here.)

The index page of available material is staggering.  I clicked on Cornelius Cardew, and what should appear but a complete concert from 1985, done by performers as a memorial.  (He had just died four years earlier.) 

For 20th-century and contemporary music lovers it's quite a goldmine. 

--Bruce