Description
György Ligeti is often grouped in with other composers who decided they cared if you listen and shifted beginning in the 1980s to more accessible styles that often reincorporated aspects of tonality, but the narrative doesn’t work so well for him. For one thing, his most popular piece remains the electronically altered Aventures, used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, direct from his High Modern Period. For another, the shift in his style that took place in the 1980s, although large, isn’t quite the ground-shifting change in plans it is often made out to be. This 2025 release, featuring violinist Isabelle Faust on his Violin Concerto of 1993 and Jean-Frédéric Neuburger on his 1988 Piano Concerto, is beautifully done, and it illustrates the issues involved. Both works, although lyrical and in part tonal, have the glassy calm that characterized Ligeti all the way through, even in the difficult, faster movements. Or, one might say, especially in the faster movements, for they pose substantial technical difficulties; these are expertly handled by Faust and Neuburger. Just as interesting is the early Concert românesc, released by Ligeti later in life. It is not a concerto but an orchestral piece. The faster movements clearly take Bartók as a basis, but even here, Ligeti offers the somewhat mysterious abstract quality that became one of his trademarks, and the orchestra Les Siècles under conductor François-Xavier Roth gets the requisite smoothness. This may emerge as a major Ligeti release, and it is enjoyable for anyone. The album made classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2025. ~ James Manheim
