Ligeti

I'm listening to Ligeti's new album which was recently reviewed in the LA Times Sunday, July 6, 2003 page E37 which reads:

More Ligeti (micro)tone poems Ligeti: "The Ligeti Project, Vol. IV" (Teldec)
* * * *
GYORGY Ligeti is one of the rare contemporary composers who have dented the mass public consciousness, thanks to the advocacy of Stanley Kubrick and his "2001: A Space Odyssey" score. While ostensibly a "difficult" character, outside the populist New Music world, Ligeti writes music that can be engaging both sensually and cerebrally, as evidenced in the fourth and latest volume of the admirable series "The Ligeti Project." The Hungarian composer's penchant for swarming, microtonal clouds of sound is heard in his early '60s "Requiem" and the late '60s piece "Ramifications," for 12 quarter-tone strings. In 1972's Double Concerto, flute and oboe protagonists flit busily over orchestral patchworks and between tonalities. But this collection's centerpiece is the newest work: "The Hamburg Concerto." for solo horn and orchestra, was finished just last year and proves to be this disc's most varied and even visceral adventure. Played with cool persuasiveness by horn soloist Marie Luise Neunecker, the piece swerves in and out of rhythmic sections and harmonic spectra pushed past "normal," though never to the breaking point.
--JOSEF WOODARD

What's interesting are the different solutions to the achieving the microtones. Program note reads:

Ramifications (1968-69) is a quarter-tone piece for twelve solo strings. Six of the instruments are tuned a quarter-tone lower than the other six.

For the Hamburg Concerto he includes one page of score showing 5 horns, the soloist plays a natural horn in F while the 4 supporting natural horns are in Fa; Mi, Mib and Re which he says can "produce the 2nd to the 16th overtone." He has them all playing passages in what looks like untransposed overtone series. He even indicates the partial by placing a numeral over some of the notes.

--Rick

Ligeti's music is definitely uniformly fantastic-- but his notions of microtonality are
ultimately, rather traditional in outlook since they work within the system of given
Western instruments for the most part, rather than "overthrowing the system" (to
borrow a marxist analogy) in favor of electronic instruments or completely retuned/
reinvented acoustic instruments.

I find it odd that he used natural horns, though, since the modern valved horn can
pick up any of the partials of any overtone series on almost any fundamental over a
considerable range. -Justin

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Rick Tagawa <ricktagawa@e...> wrote:
> I'm listening to Ligeti's new album which was recently reviewed in the
> LA Times Sunday, July 6, 2003 page E37 which reads:
>
> More Ligeti (micro)tone poems Ligeti: "The Ligeti Project, Vol. IV" (Teldec)
> * * * *
> GYORGY Ligeti is one of the rare contemporary composers who have dented
> the mass public consciousness, thanks to the advocacy of Stanley Kubrick
> and his "2001: A Space Odyssey" score. While ostensibly a "difficult"
> character, outside the populist New Music world, Ligeti writes music
> that can be engaging both sensually and cerebrally, as evidenced in the
> fourth and latest volume of the admirable series "The Ligeti Project."
> The Hungarian composer's penchant for swarming, microtonal clouds of
> sound is heard in his early '60s "Requiem" and the late '60s piece
> "Ramifications," for 12 quarter-tone strings. In 1972's Double Concerto,
> flute and oboe protagonists flit busily over orchestral patchworks and
> between tonalities. But this collection's centerpiece is the newest
> work: "The Hamburg Concerto." for solo horn and orchestra, was finished
> just last year and proves to be this disc's most varied and even
> visceral adventure. Played with cool persuasiveness by horn soloist
> Marie Luise Neunecker, the piece swerves in and out of rhythmic sections
> and harmonic spectra pushed past "normal," though never to the breaking
> point.
> --JOSEF WOODARD
>
> What's interesting are the different solutions to the achieving the
> microtones. Program note reads:
>
> Ramifications (1968-69) is a quarter-tone piece for twelve solo strings.
> Six of the instruments are tuned a quarter-tone lower than the other six.
>
> For the Hamburg Concerto he includes one page of score showing 5 horns,
> the soloist plays a natural horn in F while the 4 supporting natural
> horns are in Fa; Mi, Mib and Re which he says can "produce the 2nd to
> the 16th overtone." He has them all playing passages in what looks like
> untransposed overtone series. He even indicates the partial by placing a
> numeral over some of the notes.
>
> --Rick

In a message dated 7/18/2003 11:51:42 PM Eastern Standard Time, improvist@usa.net writes:

> Ligeti's music is definitely uniformly fantastic-- but his notions of microtonality are
> ultimately, rather traditional in outlook since they work within the system of given
> Western instruments for the most part, rather than "overthrowing the system" (to
> borrow a marxist analogy) in favor of electronic
> instruments or completely retuned/
> reinvented acoustic instruments.

And yet...

I had the opportunity to speak with Ligeti by telephone in Hamburg. His protege is Manfred Stahnke, my vote for the most prodigious microtonal composer in Germany (if not all of Europe). Ligeti told me is he always searching for some kind of microtonal connection with science formulas. He hoped I would be "proud" of some of his usage in the 2nd Violin Concerto (which I still haven't actually heard).

Ligeti is trying to come up with the quintessential microtonal contribution, while desperately trying to fulfill a load of commissions before his life expires. (yes, he worries)

He does have a beautiful solo for harpsichord intended for quarter comma meantone. And there is the trio for natural horn, violin, and ET piano. But we all await a definitive microtonal statement.

best, Johnny Reinhard