Don't Mention The Movie

Four major works on The Ligeti Project IV. Ligeti provided his own comprehensive booklet notes which I admit to using for most of this review since it is useful to have the composers own input and that isn't available with historic repertoire on the whole. The Hamburg Concerto is played by horn solist Marie Luise Neunecker with four obligato natural horns and the Asko Ensemble chamber orchestra. Ligeti dedicated the work to Neunecker and although the consanant and dissonant harmonies are weird, the sound is soft and mellow and like all the works on this disk not at all "difficult" for those prepared to give it a chance. The Double Concertto for flute, oboe and orchestra is played by Heinz Holliger on oboe and Jacques Zoon on flute with both the Schonberg Ensemble and the Asko Ensemble. The two instruments have clashing sonorities but the subtly differentiated beats help them to mesh . Ramifications for 12 solo strings from the Schonberg and Asko Ensembles has six of the instruments tuned a quarter tone lower than the other six and has a web like structure. Reinbert De Leeuw directs the ensembles in these three works. The longest piece on the disk is Requiem performed here by the Berliner Philharmoniker under Jonathan Nott with the London Voices and soloists Caroline Stein soprano and Margriet van Reisen mezzo. Ligeti doesn't mention it in his notes ( I believe he was at best ambivalent about it, not least because he wasn't asked for permission ) but Requiem remains famous for the use made of it by Stanley Kubrick in the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey. Ligeti goes into very interesting detail about how the piece was conceived and how it is written and I can see that it must be a little galling to have it now thought of as some kind of psychedelic relic from the sixties. It sets three segments from the traditional latin mass od the dead and is also inspired by the work of the artists Brueghal, Bosch and Durer. The orchestration is compact but the choral resources need to number at least a hundred singers. If you only want one disk as a taster of Ligeti, this could be the best choice.