Gyorgy Ligeti / Bernd Alois Zimmermann - Music for two Pianos (1980)

Gyorgy Ligeti was born 89 years ago today, in 1923. He lived to the age of 83, passing away in 2006.

Notes excerpted from the (enclosed) insert:
 
Monument, Selbstportrait, Bewegung- Ligeti's first piano composition since his emigration in 1956, was commissioned by the West German Radio; it was written during February, March, and April 1976, and received its world premiere at Cologne on the 15th of May 1976.

Monument - music which with its unvarying character and momentum seems to mark time on the spot - or, as the title suggests, on its pedestal. Regularly recurring intervals, only occasionally increased or reduced, are associated with particular gradings of volume level. While the pitch layers gradually extend upward and downward from the middle register, the fortissimo blocks of sound at the beginning evolve into an ever more complex texture of different dynamic levels which exist simultaneously, drawing the ear from the forte in the foreground by way of mezzo-forte, mezzo-piano and piano levels to the depths of pianissimo.
"If the dynamic differentiation is realized accurately, the music produces the effect of being three-dimensional, like a hologram standing in an imaginary space. This illusion of space gives the music a statuesque, immobile character (=Monument)."

Selbstportrait - "Self Portrait with Reich and Riley (and with Chopin in the Background)" is in the tradition of the pieces of Ligeti which by means of the polyrhythmic superimposing of extremely intricate kinds of figuration conjure up musical puzzles of outrageous absurdity )Poeme Symphonique for 100 metronomes, 1962, Les Horloges Demoniaques from Nouvelle Aventures,  1965,  Continuum for harpsichord and the 2nd String Quartet, 1968. Similar methods, although within entirely different formal concepts, were also developed during the sixties in the music of the American "minimalists"  La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Ligeti's musical group picture - drawn sharply and with a hint of caricature - clearly  reveals both relationships and differences. "As hommage to Riley and Reich (while personal affection certainly also played a part) I gave it a touch of irony (and no less self-irony, as I also depicted myself), combining the techniques of Riley's pattern repetition and Reich's phase shifting with my own techniques of superimposed grids and supersaturated canons"(...)

Even more pianistic in effect is "In a gently flowing movement", a hair-raisingly difficult study in velocity demanding the utmost virtuosity, in which characteristics of traditional piano music (Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy) glimmer like recollected images. This third third movement is, at the same time, a pendant to the first, a "liquified" variant of the static "Monument", and its chorale-like closing section - an eight-voice mirror canon "which constantly draws closer together like a telescope" sums up the concluding character of all three pieces in a joint epilogue.

Perspektiven, Monologue- Key works Of Zimmermann's oeuvre during the fifties and sixties. The Perspektiven, which form what is probably his forst strictly structural piece, reflect his coming to grips with late Webern, with the technique of serial composition, it is no mere chance that the second part of this work contains, like a deeply respectful evocation, an allusion to Webern's Concerto Op.24.
It is typical of Zimmermann that from strict construction he was able to create music of a sensuous character, marked by richness of tone colours, espressivo, apparently improvisatory freedom and pianistic brilliance. Perspektiven I was completed in April 1955 and Perspektiven II about a year later.

Zimmermann produced Monologe-a solo version of the Dialoge for two pianos and full orchestra- at the beginning of 1964 during his second year of study at the Villa Massimo in Rome. With the Dialoge (1960) and the piano trio Presence  (1961). The Monologe forms a kind of triptych; all three compositions correspond to each other formally and are derived from the same symmetrical all-interval row; indeed, all three are  founded, down to details of note sequences, rhythmical and dynamic articulation, on almost identical structures. Zimmermann's concept of "pluralistic sound"- from the time of his opera "Die Soldaten" (1958-60) the dominant principle of his musical thinking and composing- is realized in Monologe perhaps even more clearly and comprehensively than in the  two sister works. 

Materials of the past and of the present, personal to the composer and borrowed from elsewhere, are subtly interwoven in a "broad texture of musical elements of time an experience". This pluralistic composing introduces skillfully fashioned collages of quotations: Bach, Messiaen, Debussy, Beethoven, Mozart, Gregorian Chant and Boogie-Woogie are recognizable- alienating, colouring and commenting on Zimmermann's train of thought. Spontaneity, eloquence and virtuosity schooled on earlier models - above all Liszt and Debussy - give this quasi-surrealistic world of dreams and associations an extremely telling actuality.

Side One:
 
a1-3: Gyorgy Ligeti-Three Pieces For Two Pianos

I-Monument (4:07)
II-Self-Portrait (With Reich And Riley And With Chopin In The Background) (7:03)
III-Movement (4:52)

a4: Bernd Alois Zimmermann-Perspektiven I (8:04)
Side Two

b1: Bernd Alois Zimmermann-Perspecktiven II (5:10)

b2: Bernd Alois Zimmermann-Monologue For Two Pianos (18:02)

Alois and Alfons Kontarsky-Pianos

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Various Artists-ORCHESTRAL SPACE (1978)

From the back cover notes (enclosed):

Gyorgy Ligeti-Atmospheres:
"My most basic aim as a composer is the revivification of the sonorous aspect of musical form.Those factors of contemporary composition which do not manifest themselves directly as acoustical experience seem to me of only secondary importance. However, this emphatically does not mean that I intend to limit myself to the invention of new tone colors or other sound phenomena.It is much more important to me to discover new musical forms and a new manner of expression...Tone color, usually a vehicle of musical form, is liberated from form to become an independent entity."
Each instrument in the 87-member orchestra is considered independently and produces an individual sound line.The various tones and strands of sound, melting and repelling, are mixed together and transformed into a shifting expanse from which, not elements, but their momentary combinations emerge. The music reverberates in seeming chaos,its substance lithe and intense.

Toshi Ichiyanagi-Life Music:
The original version of this piece was composed on magnetic tape in 1964.In the version recorded here, the taped segments are played through large speakers situated behind the orchestra, which performs and interacts with the taped sounds. The "live" performers are picked up with contact microphones attached to their instruments. This is amplified and electronically processed for a modified quality.The result is music consisting of several elements-The unmodified "Live" orchestra, that sound mixed with its own processed sound and any combination of the two played with the taped material. This results in many possible combinations intermixed in continually varying ways.Accompanied by coordinated,shifting light effects on stage,the effect is a striking one.The "chance" element in the music is expressed through the use of silences as well as the fluid give-and-take juxtapositions of live,recorded, and live/processed sounds.

Toru Takemitsu-Arc For Piano and Orchestra:
As organizer of "Orchestral Space I" Toru Takemitsu's reputation as one of the most innovative contemporary composers is secure.
This performance of Arc uses the original score-an augmented version also exists.The piece features various instrumental combinations which are both separate musical entities and portions of a greater whole which interact with one another.The piano is situated center-stage with, initially, strings and horns gathered around it.The other instruments are divided into four groups surrounding this central nucleus.These groups go their separate ways in terms of tempo etc, yet criss-cross and intermingle ("Like fish in an aquarium" as the original Japanese notes put it) so that the whole work is more than the sum of its parts. Yet those parts retain their independence as musical "events".

Iannis Xenakis-Strategie:
Strategie is a unique work in which the composer employs a method which he calls "strategie musicale". He applies the mathematical "theory of games" to music in order to demonstrate a logical principle of behaviour.
Two 44-member orchestras are seated, one at the left and the other at the right of the stage.Each conductor chooses one (or two) at a time of the seven sound structures given by the composer (including one of silence). The seven basic sound structures or "strategies" can be characterized as follows: 0-silence, 1-wind instruments, 2-percussion, 3-striking the bodies of the string instruments, 4-pointillistic string sound, 5-string glissandi, and 6-harmonics (winds and strings) with organ points.
Each conductor signals his strategy with his hand, to his orchestra. A large score-board is set at the end of the stage.Each possible combination has already been assigned points based on the composer's calculations.So the points acquired by a conductor can be shown at once on the scoreboard by a scorekeeper. Thus two musical teams compete in a game of musical tactics.The audience hears music born of the unpredictable combinations of the strategies.
Strategie was composed in 1962 and was first performed at the Venice Festival in 1963 under the direction of B.Maderna and K.Simonovic (Maderna won the game). At "Orchestral Space I" Japanese conductors Seiji Ozawa and Hiroshi Wakasugi competed with the victory going to Wakasugi."However", Xenakis says, "a defeated conductor should never be thought inferior to a winning conductor.The latter won the contest only because he was better at following the rules of the game as determined by the composer."
-Based upon notes by Kuniharu Akiyama

Orchestral Space:

Side One:

a1-Gyorgi Ligeti- Atmospheres (1962) 8:11

a2-Toshi Ichiyanagi- Life Music,for Various Modulators,Magnetic Tape and Orchestra (1966) 16:57

Side Two:

b1-Toru Takemitsu- Arc,for Piano and Orchestra (15:00)
(Yuji Takahashi-Piano)

b2-Iannis Xenakis- Strategie (1962) 13:24

Seiji Ozawa conducting, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra
Hiroshi Wakasugi, 2nd conductor on "Strategie".






















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Please Note: This record has a slight warp at the edge which results in some noise for the first minute or so of each side.It is most noticeable in side B.

Bernstein Conducts Music of Our Time

various artists compilation - Leonard Bernstein Conducts Music of Our Time

performed by the New York Philharmonic

additional performers on "Improvisations for Orchestra and Jazz Soloists": Don Ellis - trumpet; Barre Phillips - bass; Joe Cocuzzo - drums

released in 1965

Part of the excitement of living in the mid-twentieth century is our fever for exploration. Outer space, inner space, the cosmos, the atom, the intellectual realm of mathematics and the intuitive world of music: all our worlds are expanding with the speed of an interplanetary missle, a speed both exhilarating and frightening.

As recently as 1950, neo-classicism seemed to dominate contemporary music. Yet, barely seven years later, Robert Craft could declare that a majority of the youngest West European musicians, having embraced serialism, now characterized their time as "the age of Webern." And that age had hardly been named before it was over. Important serial music continued to be written, of course, but the excitement of exploration shifted to a still newer wave of composers, for whom serial procedures were a stale formula. Electronic music (including musique concrete) and chance music lured a whole platoon of composers. Many explored musical styles in which form and constructive methods lost their importance, and interest shifted to sheer physical sound, acoustical "events," in a striking parallel to the optical "events" of current "pop" art.

It is a striking fact that the three works in this album, by György Ligeti (born 1923), Morton Feldman (born 1926), and Larry Austin (born 1930), were all composed in the year 1961.

In a way, György Ligeti's "Atmospheres" is the most conservative of the three, for it is the only one completely composed by the composer. Commissioned by the Southwest German Radio of Baden-Baden, it was first performed at Donaueschingen on October 22, 1961, under the direction of Hans Rosbaud. Ligeti, who was born in Hungary and now lives in Vienna, writes of his music: "My personal development began with serial music, but today I have passed beyond serialism. In 'Atmospheres', I have attempted to supersede the structural approach to music which once, in turn, superseded the motivic-thematic approach, and to establish a new textural concept of music. . . . This so-to-speak informal music is embodied in a new type of orchestral sound: the sonorous texture is so dense that the individual interwoven instrumental voices are absorbed into the general texture, and completely lose their individuality. This is the reason for the unusual format of the orchestral score, which is noted on eighty-seven staves, since the string instruments are written completely divisi, that is, with an individual part for each player."

Morton Feldman's "Out of 'Last Pieces'" is a more radical work in the sense that it is only partly composed in advance. Such details as pitch and rhythm of the notes are left to the individual orchestral player's discretion. For his new, semi-improvised music, Mr. Feldman had to invent a new system of musical notation. He chose graph paper. "The discovery that sound in itself can be a totally plastic phenomenon, suggesting its own shape, design and poetic metaphor, led me to devise a new system of graphic notation," writes Mr. Feldman. "'Out of 'Last Pieces'' (1961) was written on coordination paper, with each box equal to mm. 80 [or one-eightieth of a minute]. The number of sounds to be played within each box is given, with the player entering on or within the duration of each box. Dynamics throughout are very low. The amplified guitar, harp, celesta, vibraphone, and xylophone may choose sounds from any register. All other sounds are played in the high registers of the instruments, except for brief sections in which low sounds are indicated."

Larry Austin's "Improvisations for Orchestra and Jazz Soloists" is based in part on the popular American tradition of jazz improvisation and the jam session. Composed in June, 1961, it was first performed in May, 1962, during the first International Jazz Festival held in Washington, D.C. Discussing his aim, Mr. Austin writes: "At strategic points throughout the work are brief moments in which individual performers - at times orchestral, at times jazz, at times both - invent rhythmic designs on given pitches within specified spans of time. I believe this 'uncontrolled' element injects moments of creative tension in the work not readily obtained in a situation completely controlled by the composer. I strive to involve the performer and the listener in active music making." The work is divided into three connected sections: the first based on variants of the traditional twelve-bar blues, the second a slow blues, and the third based on a Charleston-like rhythm.

The most radical of the four pieces on this disc, "Four Improvisations by the Orchestra," was composed at the moment of the recording. In other words, it is almost one hundred percent improvised. "The orchestra and I are going to compose on the spot," said Leonard Bernstein to the audience in Philharmonic Hall, when he and the orchestra first improvised in public. "Nothing has been fixed or decided upon in advance except two or three signals for starting and stopping. Otherwise, every note you hear will have been spontaneously invented by the New York Philharmonic, with its conductor serving only as a kind of general guide, or policeman. Here is the New York Philharmonic's 'Improvisation No. 1,' which has never been played before, and never will be again."

The New York Philharmonic's "Improvisations Nos. 2, 3 and 4" were heard at succeeding concerts at Philharmonic Hall. The "Improvisations" on this disc bears no number. Like the earlier Philharmonic improvisations, this had never been heard before the moment of recording and, by its nature, it can never be performed again. (Edward Downes)

Tracklisting:

Side I

1. György Ligeti - Atmosphères {6:38}

2. Morton Feldman - Out of "Last Pieces" {10:34}

Side II

1. Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic - Four Improvisations by the Orchestra: I {0:55}

2. Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic - Four Improvisations by the Orchestra: II {1:51}

3. Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic - Four Improvisations by the Orchestra: III {1:29}

4. Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic - Four Improvisations by the Orchestra: IV {2:19}

5. Larry Austin - Improvisations for Orchestra and Jazz Soloists {11:51}

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Electronic Music/Musique Concrete

various artists compilation - Electronic Music/Musique Concrete: A Panorama of Experimental Music, Volume 1

Recorded under the supervision of Pierre Henry, in collaboration with the sound laboratories of the West German Radio, Italian Radio, French Radio and Television, and Studio Apsome in Paris.

The liner notes say:

Electronic music and musique concrete offer incredible possibilities to composers of imagination and vision. The works of eleven such composers are represented on these two discs and the rich diversity in approach and achievement testifies to the full blown presence of a new and vital art form.

In our century, one of a composer's principal functions has been to explore his environment and translate his discoveries into meaningful sonic symbols. Viewed from this angle, the development of electronic music and musique concrete over the past twenty years has followed a course of inevitability; creative artists are interpreting our contemporary life with sounds uniquely expressive of man's flight into technology and space.

In this album the listener will encounter some fascinating music that gives exciting artistic expression to the moods and tenors of today.

Note: There is a fragment of the first LP that has been broken. That means only the first tracks on each side of this LP are unplayable. All other tracks play okay. Apologies in advance for those missing tracks, but the music on this compilation is essential electronic music which makes this still worthy of posting.

UPDATE: Check the comments for the missing tracks. Thanks hamor.
ANOTHER UPDATE: The missing tracks provided by hamor are provided in the files.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Luciano Berio - Momenti {7:06}

2. Luciano Berio - Omaggio a Joyce {6:16}

3. Bruno Maderna - Continuo {8:03}

Side 2

1. Luc Ferrari - Visage V {10:37}

2. Iannis Xenakis - Orient-Occident {10:38}

3. Francois Dufrene and Jean Baronnet - U 47 {3:28}

Side 3

1. Mauricio Kagel - Transition I {12:55}

2. Herbert Eimert - Selection I {9:45}

Side 4

1. Pierre Henry - Entité {5:40}

2. György Ligeti - Artikulation {3:45}

3. André Boucourechliev - Texte I {6:12}

4. Henri Pousseur - Scambi {6:16}

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Earle Brown: String Quartet

Here's a Deutsche Grammophon LP from the 70s, featuring three great string quartets played by the legendary Lasalle-Quartett:

György Ligeti: II. Streichquartett (1967/68)
1 - I: Allegro nervoso
2 - II: Sostenuto, molto calmo
3 - III: Come une meccanismo di precisione
4 - IV: Presto furioso, brutale, tumultoso
5 - V: Allegro con delicatezza, stets sehr mild

6 Earle Brown: String Quartet (1965)

7 Wolf Rosenberg: III. Streichquartett (1960/61)

The radical and wild, if not "Sturm und Drang", open form quartet by Earle Brown may attract the most attention here. After all, this is its only released recording, and the brilliant musicianship of the Lasalle members makes it an exciting, thrilling listen.

But the other two pieces should not be neglected: I don't know any other works from Wolf Rosenberg, but his 3rd string quartet leaves a strong impression and must be heard several times before it can be fully appreciated.

As for Ligeti's 2nd string quartet, I can sum it up nicely with just a few words: it's a Monster, and it rocks!

Liner notes in English are included as JPG files.

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György Ligeti

György Ligeti - György Ligeti [5-LP set]

This set is an excellent overview of avant-garde composer György Ligeti's music from just about all periods of his career. This includes pieces for string quartet (Streichquartett Nr. 1, Streichquartett Nr.2), electronic music (Artikulation, Glissandi), organ (Etüden Nr.1, Etüden Nr.2, Volumina), harpsichord (Continuum), chamber music (Kammerkonzert, Ramifications), orchestra (Konzert für Violoncello und Orchester, Lontano, San Francisco Polyphony, Atmosphères) and choral/vocal (Requiem, Aventures, Lux aeterna). I've wanted to post the 2001 soundtrack as an accompaniment to the earlier 2001 post (Arthur C. Clarke reading), but I believe it's been posted several times elsewhere so I hope this is an adequate substitute as at least there is more music by the most fascinating composer on the soundtrack.

Tracklisting:

LP1

Side 1

1. Streichquartett Nr.1 - Metamorphoses Nocturnes {21:15}

Side 2

1. Streichquartett Nr. 2: Allegro nervoso {4:56}

2. Streichquartett Nr. 2: Sostenuto, molto calmo {4:07}

3. Streichquartett Nr. 2: Come un meccanismo di precisione {3:21}

4. Streichquartett Nr. 2: Presto furioso, brutale tumultoso {2:08}

5. Streichquartett Nr. 2: Allegro con delicatezza {5:36}

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LP2

Side 3

1. Continuum {3:33}

2. Zehn Stücke für Bläserquintett {12:31}

3. Artikulation {3:45}

4. Glissandi {7:27}

Side 4

1. Etüden Nr. 1 Harmonies {6:26}

2. Etüden Nr. 2 Coulée {3:12}

3. Volumina {15:01}

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LP3

Side 5

1. Kammerkonzert {19:52}

2. Ramifications, Version für Streichorchester {7:49}

Side 6

1. Ramifications, Version für 12 Solostreicher {7:38}

2. Lux aeterna {9:12}

3. Atmosphères {8:15}

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LP4

Side 7

1. Konzert für Violoncello und Orchester {12:15}

2. Lontano {10:02}

Side 8

1. Doppelkonzert {12:14}

2. San Francisco Polyphony {10:11}

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LP5

Side 9

1. Requiem {26:01}

Side 10

1. Aventures {10:37}

2. Nouvelles Aventures {11:38}

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