Tagged with 'György Ligeti'

Work of the Week – György Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre

By Christopher Peter
30 Oct 2023

The anti-anti-opera: Le Grand Macabre by György Ligeti will celebrate its premiere at the Frankfurt Opera on November 5, 2023. Vasily Barhatov will direct the production at the "Opera House of the Year", which has just been named in the music critics' survey of Opernwelt magazine. The new general music director Thomas Guggeis will be conducting in the pit, while the "Opera Choir of the Year" will perform on stage, along with many solos. This is the first of four major productions of the work in the current season, which celebrates the 100th birthday of Ligeti, who was born in 1923. At Vienna, the State Opera is opening the new production by director Jan Lauwers on November 11, with Pablo Heras-Casado conducting.

Work of the Week – Peter Eötvös: LIGETIDYLL

22 May 2023

It’s Ligeti’s Birthday! To mark the centenary of this iconic composer, Peter Eötvös (*1944) will conduct the world premiere of his new work entitled LIGETIDYLL with the Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra on 28 May 2023.

Work of the Week – György Ligeti: Lontano

By Christopher Peter
9 Jan 2023

To start off the new year, the music world will celebrate the 100th birthday of the composer György Ligeti. Even though the actual anniversary will not take place until May, this January will mark the start of celebrations involving numerous performances of Ligeti’s works. The Zurich Ballet takes a special look at the orchestral composition Lontano with choreography by Christian Spuck. The collaboration of this piece will celebrate its premiere at the Zurich Opera House on 14 January 2023.

Work of the Week – György Ligeti: Kammerkonzert

30 Mar 2020

Through the myriad compositional styles György Ligeti explored between the 1940s and the 2000s, the composer’s strict focus on form and instrumentation always remained at the forefront of his work. Among the best examples of this is undoubtedly his Kammerkonzert (Chamber Concerto) from the middle period of his output. Exactly 50 years ago, on 5 April 1970, Friedrich Cerha and his ensemble ‘die reihe’ premiered the first two movements of this work in Baltimore. The third movement followed shortly after, premiering that May in Vienna, and the concerto’s final movement was first performed the following October in Berlin.

The scoring of Kammerkonzert for thirteen players sits at the midpoint between chamber music and a more symphonic texture. The work is highly varied, encompassing passages of extreme density and contrasting sections where individual instruments emerge from the ensemble with exposed melodic lines reminiscent of Schoenberg and Berg’s expressive twelve-note writing, or of virtuosic cadenzas.

György Ligeti – Kammerkonzert: from failure to standard repertoire

The four-movement work is a concerto in the sense that all 13 players are equal and have virtuoso solo tasks. Rather than frequent changes between soli and tutti, there is constant concerto-like cooperation. The parts always flow simultaneously but use different rhythmic configurations and tempi. [...] The world premiere of the completed Chamber Concerto in 1970 was a complete failure. Critics wrote that this work massively fell behind my second string quartet, its predecessor. However, as time went by, more and more ensembles performed it multiple times. Nowadays, it is a standard repertoire work because its instrumentation is very fitting for groups like the Asko ensemble. All these things are impossible to anticipate for a composer. - György Ligeti

In advance of Ligeti’s centenary on 28 May 2023, we invite you to explore his music further. We’ve created an extensive playlist with detailed insights exploring Ligeti’s work – follow the link below to find out more.