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Performing Ligeti’s Violin Concerto: a work for the present day
No full textThe demanding maverick qualities of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto engender very different responses in performers and listeners and yet it has gained a firm foothold in concert repertoire. It compels us to engage with the future of serious music, but also with Ligeti himself. Composed in later life, the concerto sums up his achievements and experiences. Simultaneously it reflects on issues faced by twentieth-century composers generally. Ligeti has devised a work easily identifiable within the concerto tradition, assigning a virtuosic role to a soloist in what on the surface is an autonomous, multi-movement composition. What is exciting is how he challenges the norms and projects his own identity and humour into the piece, whilst leaving considerable room for interpretation in performance. Ligeti creates a broad harmonic spectrum through the use of scordatura, natural harmonics and unorthodox instruments, such as the ocarina, thus inviting us to reassess the value of equal temperament. Together with the note to the first movement, indicating that the texture should convey the impression of fragility and danger, this seems to resonate with present-day environmental concerns: an over-refinement and over-packaging of goods has caused us to overlook the richness and beauty of commodities in their natural state. However, Ligeti does not encourage us to abandon the modern world, but quite the contrary: in the concerto we find echoes of globalisation in the wide range of instruments and the compositional techniques applied to them. Non-western and folk instruments are employed and the construction of material relies on his knowledge of African and East Asian musics. References to the modern age are also suggested by mechanical textures and indeed the broken machines that dominated so many of his earlier compositions. Using documentary evidence, recordings and interviews, this paper will assess the layers of meaning transmitted in Ligeti’s concerto, considering, in particular, how performers respond to the challenges of realising the work
Fauve
No full textFor cello and three kotos, duration 7 minutes.
This piece received an Honourable Mention by the 21st Century Japanese Music Project
BBC Radio 3 record review: building a library: Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen
No full textWilliam Mival reviews recordings of Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss in this programme broadcast on 8 December 2007
Godafoss and breaking line [version for ensemble]
No full textFor ensemble: bass clarinet, cello, double bass, flute, percussion, piano, piccolo and violin, duration 7 minutes.
This work was first performed on 11 May 2002 by IXION at the Brighton Festival. It was originally published by BMIC New Voices and remains part of their collection
Three farewells
No full textFor flute, bass clarinet, harp and string quartet, duration 12 minutes. This work was commissioned by the Nash Ensemble with funds provided by IBM UK Ltd, and was premiered on 8 July 1990 at the Almeida Festival. It has since been performed widely both in the UK and abroad.
Three Farewells has also been recorded by the Nash Ensemble (Black Box, BBM1065) see https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7922408--music-to-hear. This recording is now available on YouTube, see the video tab below
Last song for Olly [reduced version] (2018, arr. 2020)
No full textReduced version for orchestra, duration 20 minutes. This work is a tribute to composer and conductor Oliver Knussen (1952-2018) and was premiered on 9 September 2020 by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle at St. Luke's Barbican, London. The premiere was live streamed on Medici TV, followed by free viewing on YouTube (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9izlgnFdSw)
Time loom
No full textFor violin and tape. A recording of this piece by Marion Borgel is available at the 'Official URL' link below
Narcissus
No full textFor piano and chamber orchestra. An excerpt from a recording by Maksim Stsura (piano) and Gerardo Gozzi (conductor) is available at the Official URL link below