Studies For The Modern Age

Back in the days when major record labels still embarked on such ventures, Sony ran the Gyorgy Ligeti Edition with a series of releases devoted to his music. this disk is number 3 in the series and is taken up with solo piano pieces played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Ligeti wrote numerous etudes for piano and featured here are book 1 and Book 2 in their entirety, plus an premiere extract from Book 3 which was a work in progress at the time of the release. In his own sleeve notes, Ligeti mentions influences ranging from Chopin through to Debussy, African modes, jazz such as bill Evans and Thelonius Monk and the player piano studies of Nancarrow. But he stresses that the results are his own and refuse to be pigeon holed, not tonal or atonal, avant garde or traditional. What they are is undoubtedly virtuosic and Aimard is a specialist in this field. There is another work on the disk, again a series of eleven studies titled Musica Ricercata. These are more readily identified as tonal and some can definitely be said to have jazz swing and harmonics about them. I think the disk is better taken in bite size chunks, one of the three segments at a time, rather than being indulged at one sitting.