Ligeti: Lux aeterna

BIS present a chronological exploration of the music of György Ligeti.

The exploration begins with a brief piece for solo piano written when he was studying in Budapest and ends with his final compositions, also for solo piano.

The disc highlights a number of works which demonstrate the kaleidoscopic qualities of the composer – from the sense of humour displayed in the Six Bagatelles to the otherworldliness of Lux Aeterna (used by Stanley Kubrick in his film 2001 – A Space Odyssey), and the sheer mass of Volumina for organ.

The disc brings together some seminal Ligeti works in interpretations that were highly praised when originally released.

Lux Aeterna put Ligeti on the map for the wider public when Stanley Kubrick appropriated it for its unearthly effect in his film 2001, A Space Odyssey. But his music began firmly in his Hungarian roots, and bears a debt to Bartók and Kodály. Both sides of this modern master are heard here.

The Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) was born in Romania of Hungarian Jewish parents. As a Jew living in mid-20th-century central-Europe, Ligeti's early musical training was interrupted by World War II. He was detained in a Nazi labour camp while other members of his family were sent to Auschwitz: only he and his mother survived the War. At the cessation of hostilities Ligeti continued his studies in Budapest until 1956, when the Soviets repressed the Hungarian revolution. He fled to Vienna and, some years later, became an Austrian citizen. Now in the West, Ligeti was free to develop and meet the leading composers in European avant-garde music of the time. Figures like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gottfried Koenig and Herbert Eimert encouraged him to join them at the electronic music studio of Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne. It was the première of his Apparitions in 1960 that launched his international career. The first disc in this set comprises the two string quartets from 1953/54 and 1968 respectively; Ramifications from 1968/69 and the Six Bagatelles from 1953 (these last two recordings are new to CD). The second disc contains a selection of Ligeti's vocal works. Ligeti died in June of 2006 in Vienna and was buried there. He is, perhaps, best known for the various pieces of his music that Stanley Kubrick used in several of his films, notably 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut

Both Ligeti and Heppener belong to the generation born in the 1920s which formed the basis for the post-war avant-garde. Lux Aeterna, used by Stanley Kubrick in his film 2001: A Space Odyssey, marked the installation of a new musical language. The later Sonata for solo viola simultaneously evokes the polyphony of the 14th century and certain varieties of ethnic music. Im Gestein, a cycle of lieder to poems by Paul Celan which won Heppener the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize in 1993, is here recorded for the first time. In 1990, Daniel Reuss, lately of the RIAS Kammerchor, and soon to take up the baton with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, became director of Cappella Amsterdam, which he turned into the full-time professional ensemble that is now one of the most sought-after in the Netherlands. His previous recording of works by Robert Heppener with the Nederlands Kammerchor received an Edison Award. Future recordings with Capella Amsterdam will include a disc of Sweelinck for harmonia mundi.