Ensemble InterContemporain

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential recording
These are three of György Ligeti's more popular works, with the word "popular" used with some hesitation. Ligeti is about as post-modern as you can get. The works here are played quite aggressively by the Ensemble InterContemporain, but I prefer the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra on Sony 58945. I do like Boulez's take on the Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra. It's a practically silent work, almost impossible to play--but the Ensemble InterContemporain pulls it off. The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra is also expertly played. Ligeti is an acquired taste. If Ligeti is your man, you'll want this release. --Paul Cook

György Ligeti: Concertos for Cello / Violin / Piano - Pierre Boulez / Ensemble InterContemporain, Music, György Ligeti, Pierre Boulez, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Saschko Gawriloff, Ensemble InterContemporain, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Cello Concerto, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Concerto, Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto

György Ligeti: Concertos for Cello / Violin / Piano - Pierre Boulez / Ensemble InterContemporain
Average customer rating:

A marvellous introduction to the Ligetish world

What was that?!?

great works and performances, and you must have it.

Worth the extreme effort

Historic recording

György Ligeti: Concertos for Cello / Violin / Piano - Pierre Boulez / Ensemble InterContemporain
György Ligeti , Pierre Boulez , Pierre-Laurent Aimard , Saschko Gawriloff , Ensemble InterContemporain , and Jean-Guihen Queyras
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Ligeti, György | ( L ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Concertos | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music
Piano | Keyboard | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music
Cello | Strings | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music
Violin | Strings | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
Deutsche Grammophon: Music | Specialty Stores | Music
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ASIN: B000001GLN
Release Date: 1994-10-11

Tracks:

Concerto For Piano And Orchestra: 1. Vivace molto ritmico e preciso - attaca subito:
Concerto For Piano And Orchestra: 2. Lento e deserto
Concerto For Piano And Orchestra: 3. Vivace cantabile
Concerto For Piano And Orchestra: 4. Allegro risoluto, molto ritmico - attacca subito:
Concerto For Piano And Orchestra: 5. Presto luminoso: fluido, costante, sempre molto ritmico
Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra: 1. Dotted Quarter=40 - attaca
Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra: 2. (Lo stesso tempo) Dotted Quarter=40
Concerto For Violin And Orchestra: 1. Praeludium: Vivacissimo luminoso - attaca:
Concerto For Violin And Orchestra: 2. Aria, Hoquetus, Choral: Andante con moto - attacca:
Concerto For Violin And Orchestra: 3. Intermezzo: Presto fluido
Concerto For Violin And Orchestra: 4. Passacaglia: Lento intenso
Concerto For Violin And Orchestra: 5. Appassionato: Agitato molto

Amazon.com essential recording

These are three of György Ligeti's more popular works, with the word "popular" used with some hesitation. Ligeti is about as post-modern as you can get. The works here are played quite aggressively by the Ensemble InterContemporain, but I prefer the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra on Sony 58945. I do like Boulez's take on the Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra. It's a practically silent work, almost impossible to play--but the Ensemble InterContemporain pulls it off. The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra is also expertly played. Ligeti is an acquired taste. If Ligeti is your man, you'll want this release. --Paul Cook

Customer Reviews:

A marvellous introduction to the Ligetish world.......2007-01-28

Let me recommend this record, a marvellous introduction to the Ligetish world which conteins three among the most representative works by the Ungarian composer. Performances are simply exemplary.
The main item is the Piano Concert, a complex work performed by the well-experienced piamist Pierre-Laurent Aimard who put together jazzed patterns, polyrhythms and juxtaposed melodies in an only explosive mixture: an entire composition eternally searching for a balance point which is ideally put outside of the composition itself.
Highly recommended.

John Oatcake

What was that?!?.......2005-03-18

The concluding solo by Gawriloff is in itself worth the price of the disc. It has got to be among the greatest performances on the violin, period. Indescribable and mind blowing. How fortunate we are to get the whole concerto, plus two more concertos.

great works and performances, and you must have it........2004-05-08

Ligeti is my favorite composer, and Bartok. This is an excellent disc. As a compilation of three excellent, major Ligeti works (the cello concerto is great; the piano and violin concertos are masterpieces), this makes for an excellent introduction to Ligeti's unique, avant-garde world. Because of the excellent performances (Pierre Boulez conducting his Ensemble Intercontemporain, with pure virtuosos on the featured solo instruments), this should be owned by all Ligeti lovers as well.

Ligeti's sonic arrangements seem preternaturally conceived. Musical analysis for this is basically out of my league so I will just provide general comments. The violin concerto is Ligeti's most organic use of the orchestra. Although Saschko Gawriloff's violin is obviously the most prominent and active instrument, it is very much the root of the music that gives rise to the orchestral extrapolations. The piano concerto is similar in this regard, but its core extends from the piano's attack and is mechanical and forceful, more explicitly polyrhythmic and convolutedly metered, rather than the violin's sinuousness and the watery movement of the orchestra (that can be both fierce and placid). Ligeti is very good at thinking for the instruments in that way. I have come to prefer this version of Ligeti's concerto for piano and orchestra over the one on Teldec's Ligeti Project I, although on that one Aimard really nails the third movement. It is also great and worth hearing. This performance of the violin concerto is also better than one on Ligeti Project III, although it too is of value. The cello concerto is darker than these later concertos, like a lot of earlier Ligeti music. This mysterious piece that begins with cello playing a single note that is nearly silent. Different layers are added and it develops more as a texture-minded concerto than a solo-minded one. The second movement is distinctly contrasted with second, an aggressive array of multiple fractured melodies and interlocking meters. It fades out like it started, with cello alone, but now as a scratchy vibrato. It's good, I have nothing bad to say about it, but it doesn't reach the level of the later concertos.

This is brilliant music. Buy it even if you think avant-garde is scary.

Worth the extreme effort.......2003-10-07

When I first bought this I thought of Ligeti as a distinguished atonal, postmodern composer, but have since discovered that he is much more unique than that description suggests. He is beyond tonality and atonality, and beyond postmodernism. In his own words: "the ironic theatricalizing of the past is quite foreign to me."

Written between 1985 and 1992, the Piano Concerto and Violin Concerto together are supposed to demonstrate the full expressive range of his later works. The Piano Concerto is a whirlwind of rhythmically driven fantasies, created by precise, almost mechanical, colliding cross-rhythms, and twisted, sprightly melodies. The Violin Concerto is just as quirky and jarring, but wilder and more impassioned, less 'mechanical,' more vigorous, and ultimately the highlight of the disc. I find Perre Laurent-Aimard's second version of the Piano Concerto, with the Schonberg Ensemble under Reinbert de Leeuw's, more enjoyable than this recording, but of the two available recordings of the Violin Concerto this seems to be widely considered the better (the only one I've heard).

All of the compositions on the disc demonstrate amazingly effective use of space and time, and advanced virtuosity at the absolute service of artistic vision. Excellent recording.

For me, as a newcomer to modern 'classical' music, this disc demanded some serious listening adjustment, attention and patience, but it was well worth the effort. Judging by the liner notes, a degree in music theory might also have been of great help, but I don't think I am prepared to go THAT far to fully appreciate these remarkable musical/sonic experiences.

Historic recording.......2002-02-28

Although this recording has recent competition (from Aimard himself, in one instance), it remains a historical collaboration between Ligeti, Boulez, Gawriloff and Aimard, and the three concertos compelement one another nicely.

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