Very Nice Piano Studies. Not the best Ligeti

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	• György Ligeti Edition 3: Works for Piano (Etudes, Musica Ricercata) - Pierre-Laurent Aimard Gyorgy Ligeti, Pierre-Laurent Aimard Sony, 1997 average customer review:based on 21 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A nice micro-view of Ligeti's work

In the notes that accompany this CD, Ligeti explains that his piano compositions are the way he made up for his inadequacies as a player. It's hard to argue that he didn't reach his goal. These superbly-performed pieces provide a clear view of many aspects of Ligeti's work--his humor, his lyricism, his ear, and sometimes his little obsessions.

The most obvious technical requirement of this music is touch. In some of the etudes, complex voicings are required at very low dynamic levels. In others, the ability to bring out multiple voices is paramount. Aimard is perfect. His technique is so assured that we can easily get to the music and not be sidetracked by prowess.

Those who know Ligeti's music know how protean he could be. Like a good athlete, he was willing to take on enormous risks. Sometimes the result felt intellectualized and tiresome. But more often than not, the music soared. This is certainly true of the Etudes on this disk. They are studies in the truest sense of the word--one may focus on a particular set of intervals, another on a texture, yet another on a rhythm. Each one is fascinating and the collection holds together nicely. There are even hints of Nancarrow!

Ligeti himself felt ambiguously about the "Musica Ricercata", and it isn't hard to see why. The first piece is based on only two pitches (with octaves); the second on three and so on. It sort of proves a point, but what point? By the time you get to the fourth piece, it starts to get good, but the listener has to regain some flagging energy. The third piece is actually the basis of the opening of "6 Bagatelles for Wind Quintet".

So while I have little quibbles, I still recommend this disk strongly. It's great music, beautifully played.

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Perfect Ligeti.

The own György Ligeti was asked about who was the pianist more complete in his piano works; he talked about Pierre-Laurent Aimard, whose a close relation with the XXth Century music is very well known (Boulez, Messiaen, Berg, Schönberg, Carter...) all around the world. He talked too about Volker Banfield, who has recorded some of the Etudes for Wergo, but not so good as Aimard recordings, in my opinion.

What we find in this CD, 3rd of an outstanding series, is the technical perfection made piano playing, in the hands of Aimard, who plays absolutely all the notes full of perfection, sense and correction, from the dynamic to the tempo, from the correct attack to the prodigious use of the pedal. If you are used to a romantic piano you can feel this versions a little cold or dry, but this is because Aimard goes directly to the heart of the XXth Century style of piano playing, in the line that comes from Schönberg-Berg-Webern and that goes in a different way of playing than the century before, so you can be lost in some sense about the way he understand the use of the piano, the playing, the technique, the echoes, the silences...

You'll find in this CD the Musica Ricercata, a work from Ligeti's first period, very easy to understand for those who are not used to listen this kind of "modern" music. It has many folk motives, used in a way very close to Bartók's style. One of this pieces (Musica ricercata: II. Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale) was taken by Stanley Kubrick for his last film Eyes Wide Shut, with an outstanding presence in the film associated to the worries and pressure over the main character; Ligeti says about this piece that it was a knife against the stalinist regime because of this style of music, sinister, innovative and forgiven in the communist Europe. The film's version is slower than this by Aimard, more "cinematographic" but slower than the score asks. Aimard's version in this piece and in the full pieces are outstanding.

The rest of the CD it's based on the Etudes, books I & II, both of them complete. Those are pieces much more modern than the Musica Ricercata, some of them, in the words of Ligeti with some links and inspiration on Nancarrow's works. We are listening in this case some of the most complex works for piano written in the XXth Century, and many of them authentic jewels of the genre. The Aimard versions for Sony are the better I know from the French pianist, who have recorded some of them in other CDs, like his great recording from de Carnagie Hall (Warner), but not so good like this outstanding CD.

So, if you are looking for perfection in Ligeti's piano music performances don't doubt about this CD; if you want to discover the piano of the XXth Century this could be a great door to go into, because of the music, because of the performing and because of a perfect recording and booklet.

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Very Nice Piano Studies. Not the best Ligeti

Volume 3 of the Gyorgy Ligeti Edition on Sony has gotten a boatload of very positive reviews, above, from people who probably know a lot more about music, especially piano music, than I do, but I maintain, from my position as a rank amateur who just happens to like listening to a wide range of classical music, that this disc is neither the very best piano music nor the most interesting Ligeti.

Don't get me wrong. I think almost all of the studies on these tracks are good, maybe even almost as good as Chopin and Liszt, but I don't think so. We don't hum Ligeti etudes the way some people hum Chopin etudes or dances for piano. And, a few of the passages sound like the scene from 'Ghostbusters' where Bill Murray tickles the very high keys on Sigourny Weaver's piano as they enter her apartment to track down some particularly awesome apparitions of Zuel (sic) and Gozer (sic sic).

If you are looking to touch only the high points of Ligeti's music and don't have the compulsioin to own everything, you can pass on these and not be missing too much of the good stuff. Check out his choral and a capella works for the really hot stuff.

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I like Ligeti

I like the inventiveness of G. Ligeti. The Musica Ricercata Suite is a good and early example of his continuous search for new musical structures.

I'm just a music listener, with no qualification to comment the interpretation of Mr. Aimard.

I'm satisfied.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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Tracks
Piano Etudes (Book One): I. De'sordre - Molto vivace, vigoroso, molto ritmico | Piano Etudes (Book One): II. Cordes a' vide - Andantino con moto, molto tenero | Piano Etudes (Book One): II. Touches bloque'es - Presto possibile, sempre molto ritmico | Piano Etudes (Book One): IV. Fanfares - Vivacissimo molto ritmico, con allegria e slancio | Piano Etudes (Book One): V. Arc-en-ciel - Andante molto rubato, con eleganza, with swing | Piano Etudes (Book One): VI. Automne a' Varsovie - Presto cantabile, molto ritmico e flessibile | Piano Etudes (Book Two): VII. Galamb borong - Vivacissimo luminoso, legato possibile | Piano Etudes (Book Two): VIII. Fe'm - Vivace risoluto, con vigore | Piano Etudes (Book Two): IX. Vertige - Prestissimo sempre molto legato, sehr gleichmassig | Piano Etudes (Book Two): X. Der Zauberlehrling - Prestissimo, staccatissimo, leggierissimo | Piano Etudes (Book Two): XI. En suspens - Andante con moto, (avec l`e'le'gance du swing) | Piano Etudes (Book Two): XII. Entrelacs - Vivacissimo molto ritmico, sempre legato, con delicatezza | Piano Etudes (Book Two): XIII. L'escalier du diable - Presto legato ma leggiero | Piano Etudes (Book Two): XIV. Coloana infinita' - Presto possibile, tempestoso con fuoco | Musica ricercata: I. Sosenuto - Misurato - Prestissimo | Musica ricercata: II. Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale | Musica ricercata: III. Allegro con spirito | Musica ricercata: IV. Tempo de Valse (poco vivace - a' l'orgue de Barbarie) | Musica ricercata: V. Rubato. Lamentoso | Musica ricercata: VI. Allegro molto capriccioso | Musica ricercata: VII. Cantabile, molto legato | Musica ricercata: VIII. Vivace. Energico | Musica ricercata: IX. Adagio. Mesto - Allegro maestoso | Musica ricercata: X. Vivace. Capriccioso | Musica ricercata: XI. Andante misurato e tranquillo | Piano Etudes (From Book Three): XV. White on White

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