Music in Magyar

In rememberance of his death last June, I recently explored a selection of music by Gyorgy Ligeti. The second CD in the Ligeti Project series features the Berlin Philharmonic playing five of his orchestral pieces (Teldec, 2002). One of the compositions, Atmospheres, brought the composer widespread attention when it was featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Ligeti was born in a small, predominantly Jewish Transylvanian village in 1923. He and his mother were the only members of his family to survive the Holocaust. Life in Budapest under Communist rule was unbearable for the freethinking Ligeti. In one section of his Romanian Concerto, he writes an F sharp while in the key of F major. This was enough for the authorities to ban the whole piece. Following the Hungarian Revolution, Ligeti and his wife fled across the Iron Curtain into Austria.



Once free of Communist censorship, Ligeti ventured into uncharted musical waters. Virtually abandoning the thematic motive, his pieces from that era are amorphous "masses of sound." The orchestra produces colors and textures instead of melodies and rhythms; tuning is a subjective affair. Atmospheres, Apparitions, and Lontano are three representative compositions. Ligeti describes them as "micropolyphonic," a broad categorization he defines as "consisting of complex interwoven textures." If you recall the end sequence of space-time travel in 2001, the musical accompaniment comes from Atmospheres.

As well as forging a path for modernism, Ligeti built upon the majestic edifice of Hungarian national music. A direct successor of Bela Bartok, Ligeti wrote many tonal works based on traditional dance themes. The BPO includes an excellent recording of Concert romanesc in their disc. Concert romanesc provides temporal grounding for the ethereal explorations of Atmospheres. Unlike so many other modernists, Ligeti composed individualistic music capable of reaching unadventurous audiences.

One of the forefathers of the Hungarian classical tradition was Franz Liszt. In the middle of the 19th century, Liszt wrote 12 symphonic poems (a 13th followed late in his life), of which I listened to four in a recording by the BBC Philharmonic (Chandos, 2005).



Initially dismissed as a frivolous and unimaginative by his countryman Bartok, that great 20th century composer later came to discover "far greater genius" in Liszt than in Wagner or that other famous symphonic poet, Richard Strauss. Although Liszt's symphonic poems are programmatic mainstays of the classical repertoire, the majority of performances only include his most famous, Les Preludes.

Although my favorite, Mazeppa, is the least subtle of the poems I have heard, others, like Orpheus, on this disc, are more contemplative in nature. All symphonic poems use some theme, often taken from literature, to set the mood. Liszt enjoyed condensing the "morals" of his poems into brief narrative statements included at the beginning of the score.

For a foray into one of the most fertile geographic regions of classical music, try a smattering of Ligeti and the symphonic poems of Liszt. The CDs I mentioned are a nice place to start.