Amadinda

On this CD:

1. Doll's House Story for percussion ensemble
Composed by Istvan Marta
Performed by Istvan Marta

2. Pebble Playing in A Pot
Composed by Laszlo Sary

3. 2nd Construction, for 4 percussionists
Composed by John Cage

4. Piano Phase, for 2 pianos (or 2 marimbas)
Composed by Steve Reich

5. Traditional African Percussion Music
Composed by African Traditional

6. Log Cabin Blues
Composed by George Hamilton Green

7. Charleston Capers
Composed by George Hamilton Green

8. Traditional African Percussion Music
Composed by African Traditional

9. Jovial Jasper
Composed by George Hamilton Green

Amadinda, Music, John Cage, George Hamilton Green, Istvan Marta, Steve Reich, Laszlo Sary, African Traditional, Istvan Marta, Chamber, Chamber Music, Chamber Music & Recitals, Classical, Classical Composers, Keyboard, Keyboard Music for More Than One Player, Miscellaneous, Miscellaneous Music, Percussion, Percussion Chamber Music

The Ligeti Project III: Cello Concerto / Clocks & Clouds / Violin Concerto / Síppal, Dobbal, Nádihegedüvel
Average customer rating:

Thank you for all, Mr. Ligeti.

Deep contrasts and consistencies among four masterful pieces

A great Ligeti disc, including two world premieres

More serious fun from Ligeti

two string concertos, two vocal works

The Ligeti Project III: Cello Concerto / Clocks & Clouds / Violin Concerto / Síppal, Dobbal, Nádihegedüvel
Gyorgy Ligeti , Siegfried Palm , Frank Peter Zimmerman , ASKO/Schonberg Ensemble , Capella Amsterdam , and Amadinda Percussion Group
Manufacturer: Teldec
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Ligeti, György | ( L ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
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Violin | Strings | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
Choruses | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
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The Ligeti Project IV: Hamburg Concerto (Horn Concerto) / Double Concerto / Ramifications / Requiem

The Ligeti Project II: Lontano / Atmosphères / Apparitions / San Francisco Polyphony / Concert Românesc - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Jonathan Nott

The Ligeti Project I: Melodien / Chamber Concerto / Piano Concerto / Mysteries of the Macabre - Schönberg Ensemble / ASKO Ensemble / Reinbert de Leeuw

The Ligeti Project, Vol. 5

György Ligeti Edition 1: String Quartets and Duets - Arditti String Quartet

ASIN: B00006F1P9
Release Date: 2003-01-28

Customer Reviews:

Thank you for all, Mr. Ligeti........2006-06-14

It's not easy to write about Ligeti today, he has just passed away last Monday, so this is the first review I write about his works with Ligeti death... We know it could happen because of his very weak health, but it hurts when finally it's confirmed that he is not with us... We have his works and that's the most direct way to the immortality, that one Ligeti is living now in our memory and in our ears, those that were filled so many times with his extraordinary music, one of the best I know in the XXth Century, that finally will be Ligeti's century, as his work is quite complete written in that period.

Teldec continued some years ago Sony series of Ligeti music, a break that didn't suffer too much of that change, adding enormous artists like those you can listen in this CD. All the series is an outstanding thing, an some performances are really the best.

Cello Concert is my favourite Ligeti's concerto together with the Chamber one. A work in the style of his marvellous orchestral works of the `60s that explores the cello resources in an unique way. Palms' performance is very good, but he is not in so good shape like in the years of the premiere, and in general terms nowadays I prefer Queyras performance with Boulez for DG, really the version of Ligeti's Cello Concerto I think it's the best available. The ensemble playing is really amazing, one of the best I know on CD, and you have to think there're very good performances, like Boulez's one or the one played by Miklos Perenyi & Ensemble Modern, conducted by Peter Eötvös (Sony), my third version after Boulez and this one.

Clocks and Clouds, for voices and ensemble, is an interesting work that explore natural rhythms and mechanical ones, transforming them. This is the world premiere recording, I can't believe it, because it's really a very good work, sometimes in quite minimal style, working with elemental cells.

Violin concert is the typical example from Ligeti's final period, much more focused on rhythm and colour, and less explorative than his previous periods I really liked much more. This performance by Frank Peter Zimmermann is the best I know, better than Sashko Gawriloff one with Boulez and the EIC (DG), which is really very good too. I talked with Zimmermann about this recording some months ago, and he agreed to this is a marvellous recording and CD, with Ligeti help.

Sippal, dobbal, nádihegeduvel is a piece I didn't know and which I find very interesting too. Even the piece I really consider the best one in this CD is Cello Concert.

The sound is simply perfect in every piece, in the very high level Teldec is recording the full series. Warm sound, compact, clear, clean and very well balanced and direct. A natural sound in which the works seems even better.

Great CD in an outstanding project.

Deep contrasts and consistencies among four masterful pieces.......2004-11-04

This is the third disc in Teldec's "Ligeti Project", which continues the collection started by Sony's "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition" of the composer's works in performances supervised by the composer himself. It contains four works, including two world premiers, and represents works from the 1960's and the 1990's. As with most of the material in the "Ligeti Project" series, the orchestras are the Asko and Schoenberg Ensembles conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw.

The "Cello Concerto" was premiered in Berlin with Siegfriend Palm on cello in 1967, and Palm, one of the most famous interpreters of the avant garde cello over the last forty years, returns on this performance. In spite of its name, however, the work is not a traditional concerto, for the soloist does not dominate to the expected degree and only his visual presence marks his role. The piece begins with a long-held E, marked "pppppppp", the softest dynamic in Ligeti's entire oeuvre, which continues for a minute and a half before it meets F. This gradual evolution continues for the five-plus minutes of the first movement, opening up the harmonic cluster in both directions like an elegant vista. The second movement is in a way Ligeti's embrace of pre-serialist norms, for he uses open octaves and tritones, but its series of gestural mannerisms and wild gesticulations keeps it firmly in the modern tradition. This is not one of his most famous works of the 60's, but still deserving of attention.

"Clocks and Clouds", inspired by a lecture by Karl Popper on the distinction between mechanical regularity and fuzzy nebulosity, is a piece for 12 female voices and orchestra written in 1973 but never before recorded. It uses a remarkable selection of instruments containing seventeen woodwinds, but only two trumpets and no other brass, no violins among the strings, and glockenspiel, vibraphone, celestra, and two harps in important roles. The sung text is merely phonetic symols meant to blend with the instrumental sonorities. This is an ethereal, lush, and dreamlike piece that is among Ligeti's most easily listenable, and stylistically it shows inspiration from the school of minimalism which Ligeti became acquainted with during a term teaching in San Francisco.

The "Violin Concerto" (1989-1992) was written between 1989 and 1993 by comission of the violinist Saschko Gawriloff. Here the soloist is Frank-Peter Zimmermann. The work is a carnival of microtones. The orchestra consists of ten wind players, percussion, and eleven solo strings, and tuning varies wildly. Brass players often play natural harmonics that clash with equal temperment, two string players retune their instruments to follow the seemingly out-of-tune sounds of the double-bass, and several players turn to imprecise ocarinas and slide whistles. Like many works of the late Ligeti, this is in a postmodern vein, where the composer not only showcases his own new ideas but quotes his own past works ("Musica Ricercata") and borrows from Balkan folk music concepts. I concur with those who would call this music "wacky", it's certainly exhuberant and hops from style to style in a very fun way.

"Sippal, Dobbal, Nadihegeduvel" is a circle of seven songs based on poems by Sandor Weores, among the greatest of 20th century Hungarian poets whose works Ligeti and fellow Hungarian composer Peter Eotvos have extensively set. The work uses only mezzo-soprano and percussion, and was written for the Amadinda Percussion Group who also perform it here. It is in some ways a return to the faux folk music Ligeti wrote in communist Hungary, using only convential tunings but it nevertheless has a very exotic and non-traditional sound through its uses of metallophone percussion. I enjoy these songs because I am a great fan of Weores' poetry, but they are quite different than most of Ligeti's adult works and may meet many listeners with bafflement. What one must understand before hearing these seven pieces is that Ligeti has a sense of humour just like all people and is not some deadly serious ivory tower academic composer like, say, Boulez.

While perhaps not the best introduction to Ligeti (try "Gyorgy Ligeti Edition 3: Piano Works" or "The Ligeti Project IV") This is one of the strongest discs in his collected works and passionately recommended.

A great Ligeti disc, including two world premieres.......2003-11-21

This, the third entry in Teldec's Ligeti Project, is sensibly balanced in terms of its coverage of Ligeti's output. Two of the four works are vocal, two are concerti. Two are from his 'clocks and clouds' micropolyphonic phase, two are from his recent postmodern one. And all are given superlative performances.

The cello concerto of 1966 was perhaps the decisive work in Ligeti's first mature period, as it is the piece in which he begins to return to conventionally beautiful harmonic writing. The first of the two movements of the cello concerto is very slow, beginning with a single cello note initially marked pppppp (!), which slowly becomes louder until it is joined by other instruments which start to fill in the notes above and below it. Eventually, the notes in the center of the pitch range fall away, and the cello sails as high as it can reach over a single held bass note, 'alone and lost' as the composer puts it. In contrast, the second movement covers a similar process in a much more hyperactive manner, ending with the soloist sputtering out percussive raps and jerky notes. The performance here, by the dedicatee of the work, Siegfried Palm, outclasses both his earlier recording and that by Jean-Guihen Queyras on DG, and can be considered definitive.

Clocks and Clouds, for small chorus and chamber orchestra, is 30 years old now, but previously unrecorded. The title, taken from an essay by Karl Popper on the difference between discrete and continuous phenomena, is a very good description of the work, which contrasts rhythmic, mechanical repetition with near-static, slowly shifting harmonies. Ligeti himself was very critical of this work, believing it was too derivative of American minimalists like Steve Reich and Terry Riley, but it sounds like pure Ligeti to me. The orchestration is limpid and clear, with some superb writing for tuned percussion, and the choral writing is a model of clarity.

1992's violin concerto is a paragon of later Ligeti--its Bartokian inheritance twisted by an interest in clashing tunings and impure intonation. Its five movements (fast-slow-fast-slow-fast in Bartokian arch form) provide much contrast--the first movement emerging out of repeated ostinato figures into melody, the second varying a folk-like theme (with the harmonies 'bent' by slide whistles and ocarinas). A brief, rapid intermezzo, coloured by a haze of harmonic clashes, forms the third movement, before an intense passacaglia, slow passacaglia that climaxes in dissonant, harmonically clashing notes. The virtuoso finale climaxes with a cadenza--the violinist is invited to supply his or her own, though here Frank Peter Zimmermann uses the one written by the work's dedicatee Sashko Gawriloff--before the orchestra rudely ends the work with a brief series of chords. This is by any standards a major work, and Zimmermann's performance should be considered the most desirable on record at this point.

The final work, With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles is a song cycle for soprano and percussion quartet, based on poetry by Sandor Weores. The seven songs here are brief, and the accompaniment often tends towards bizarre sound effects, but it is still a strong work. The first song rumbles away splendidly: "A mountain walks/The other mountain comes towards it", as the words have it. The second song is a rapid nonsense poem with delighted squeaks and squeals from the percussionists: in contrast, the third is merely a sequence of peaceful diatonic chords. The fourth song evokes mindless labour, the aggression that is beneath the surface eventually coming to the surface near the end. Two slow songs follow, the fifth a melancholic, ruminative piece where the vocalist is accompanied by four harmonicas, the sixth a near-folk-pop slice of melancholy, and the whole work is rounded off by a deliciously over-the-top nonsense song.

This might well be the best single Ligeti disc available today. Even by Ligeti's impressive standard, the works are consistently fine, and the performances here are all outstanding.

More serious fun from Ligeti.......2003-03-18

Serious composers probably take umbrage at the notion that their works sound "whacky," but that's the best adjective I can think of for Ligeti's exuberant compositions. This series (and its earlier incarnation on Sony) has brought us some really out-there stuff from one of the most individual composers of the 20th century. This latest release has the beautiful but quirky Violin Concerto, a kind of cuckoo-land successor to the Bartok 2nd concerto. There's also a piece for voices and orchestra from the '60s that's more in the serious vein. Not so the cycle for voice and percussion at the end of the CD, where the singer screams, yelps, and makes all manner of crazy sounds, all of it to more dramatically convey the text. Compared to many Europeans of his generations, Ligeti has always had a sense of humor (dark at times, but never the less). This latest release is a delight, and the performances are exquisite.

two string concertos, two vocal works.......2003-03-02

This, the third in the LIGETI PROJECT series, features new recordings of the Cello Concerto and the Violin Concerto, along with premieres of two vocal works, "Clocks and Clouds" from 1973, and a new work, "With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles" from 2000.

Siegfried Palm plays the cello, as he did in the original recording of the Concerto in 1967 (Wergo 60613-50). This is a fine version, but it's not clear that it surpasses the original. The recording quality, with state-of-the-art compression, is creamier, yet murkier than the more natural 1967 version. I have not heard the DG recording with Queyras, and Boulez conducting. "Clocks and Clouds" is a superb piece, one of the last in Ligeti's characteristic style of the 1960s -- with both vocals and orchestra, it could be a hybrid of "Atmospheres" and "Lux Aeterna." The Violin Concerto has been hailed as one of Ligeti's finest later works, and Frank Peter Zimmerman gives it a spectacular performance. Again, I have not heard the original DG recording with Gawriloff and Boulez to compare, but in its own right this long-awaited recording is outstanding. Finally, "Sippal, dobbal, nadihegeduvel: Weores Sandor verseire" is a collage of seven short vocal pieces, setting verse by the Hungarian poet to song. Katalin Karolyi is the mezzo-soprano, with idiosyncratic accompaniment by such instruments as slide whistles and harmonicas.

Another fine collection of Ligeti! For anyone first investigating Ligeti's soundworld, I would recommend beginning with the LIGETI PROJECT II, which includes some of his most well-known and influential orchestral works brilliiantly played by the Berlin Philharmonic. This disc is essential for collectors because of the otherwise unavailable vocal work premieres, and will give anyone a great introduction to a 20th century master.

See my GYORGY LIGETI'S SOUNDWORLD, as well as my THE 7 BEST COMPOSERS OF THE LATE 20TH CENTURY lists for more Ligeti recordings and reviews.

Average customer rating:

Where is the "Bust of Beethoven" skit when we need it the most!
Amusing as it is yet infuriating
sounds of 'silence'
Extrovert & Glorious

4'33"

Manufacturer: Hungaroton
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Percussion | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
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John Cage: In a Landscape
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Indeterminacy
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John Cage: Music for Prepared Piano, Vol. 2

ASIN: B000003070
Release Date: 1993-12-08

Customer Reviews:

Where is the "Bust of Beethoven" skit when we need it the most!.......2007-04-30

Ahhhh! 4'33" and with a straight face I'm told by a diehard John Cage fan, "You fail to grasp the "event", Doc, the "attitude" of the piece, where what you term 'silence' is in fact the 'ambient chorus of the hall' [!?] where even a passing cough [or belch or ... ?] by an audience member could conceivably be, in the mind of the listener anyway, the "Appassionata" [!] or indeed the 'essence of a Liszt or a Rachmaninoff' !" to which I promptly replied, "Well, the experience leaves me 'envisioning' at least analogously anyway, since such conjuring becomes a mandate for any 'listener' from the very get-go, the Chopin B-Flat Minor "Funeral March" piece!" Scratch one otherwise decent "agree to disagree" cyber friendship!

Let's get down to cases: the pianist comes to the piano, sits, and except for the piano lid 'adjustment' after watching the 'time' in order to signal the 3 "movements" of 4'33", not a note is played!

C'mon already! I mean if we're doing the old Muppet Show with Victor Borge and Fozzie-Bear "Bust of Beethoven" skit [I loved that one! You know, Victor hits a [purposeful] clinker in the "Moonlight Sonata" and Fozzie makes with the "Did you make a mistake?" and the "Bust of Beethoven" pipes up for the 'defense', as it were, "No, that's the way I wrote it!"]. Anyway, if the purpose 'is' in fact pure skit or shtick, hey, fine, but to seriously pass off 4'33" as no less than the veritable muse itself "manifesting itself to both artist and audience", give me a break!

Yes, I've narrowed my remarks to 4'33" but then this whole business of the "prepared piano" or of bolts, screws, spoons, wires, marbles, 'whatever' either 'precisely set' or indeed simply rolling around the piano strings as allegedly representing "the voice of things to come and/or music of the future", hey, I'll settle for a "Chopsticks" rendition if 'only' for the purpose of some semblance for piece recognition or indeed a return to some form of harmony ... versus dissonance gone amuck but for the 'sake' of dissonance by design!

What's that? Sure! I most certainly 'did' see Andy Russo at one of my "precious classical international piano competitions" [Van Cliburn, Leeds, Chopin, et al] reach over the piano keys and begin a sort of 'pizzicato variation' while literally plucking the piano 'strings' doing that George Crumb piece but hey, did YOU see the face of juror Claude Frank when he saw it happening? Yeah, I know, beauty is in the eye [or ear or, indeed, in this case with 4'33", 'imagination'] of the beholder, true enough, but there are also such things as the proverbial elephant in the room too ... albeit often to the accompanying 'aroma' left by the beast therein!

Doc Tony

Watch now ... a reader in 'wherever' .... "Obviously the good doctor is an ultra staid classical "sic piece" and no doubt fanatical Claudio Arrau fan!" OK, I'll give you this for 4'33", the 'plus' side if you will: no pesky clinkers, missed notes or memory lapses! And hey, the real recital biggie for 4'33" renderings, talk about de facto 'silencing' those artist critics, yes? Or could that audible rumble of the hall air conditioning system suddenly conjure up even to the critic the kettle drum prelude to Thus Spake You-Know-Who! Watch too, yet another reader, "That's it, Doc! 'Now' you have the heart of it all!" ;-)

Amusing as it is yet infuriating.......2007-02-21

4'33" is a solid example of the post/modernist's destruction of art by ideology; and while it is arguable that any condemnation of this destruction--or even calling it destruction at all--belies valuation which ought itself to be deconstructed, I call bull****. And not in the made-up Frankfurt sense.
I like to believe that Beethoven would have punched Cage in the head.
Because, you see, there is within this absurd silliness, a rejection of music. Music is something to be enjoyed for what it is; that is, for the components of music--melody, tone, &c.--and for the emotion behind the music and for the element of design, composition. I don't mean to attempt to set up some criteria for music or art; rather, I will say that there is something about music that is essential to music, something beyond the definition of music, or one might say that music is defined by something that cannot be re-defined without rendering music noise. It seems inexpressible: we can point at the components of music, but to say what music is--
Ligeti pushed the boundaries. Messiaen was innovative. Schoenberg was... something. And so on. And so forth. But this--!
Cage, when a little more serious, can be a bit enjoyable; but the most enjoyable aspect of this album, I think, is the near-silent track--the track which makes a mockery out of placing philosophy over art. No, placing an unreal philosophy over art. Abstraction, the unconcrete and ungrounded. Something thought of in a moment in which he was withdrawn from reality. A fancy: wouldn't it be splendid if all things, the greatest music and the most random sounds, were without error, equal. It seems an avoidance of judgment, an avoidance of valuation--and insofar as it is conscious of its avoidance, itself a valuation, or dis-valuation--a senseless pursuit of the program of re-valuation, without regard for reality.
So, despite the fact that Beethoven would punch Cage in the head, I think 4'33" has some value: it exposes the farce of ridiculous modes of thought.

sounds of 'silence'.......2005-12-15

" I should note that audience noise is somewhat pronounced, but it really presents no obstacle to enjoyment of this magnificent rendition of 4'33". " that was just too funny not to write my own review.

Cage is probably one of the most important of the American avant-garde composers, and is most notorious for this piece, 4'33", in which no noise in delibritly made. "There is no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound." It is these unintentioned sounds, especially of the crowd, that is to be regarded as the music of the piece. Cage is infamous for having asked the question, what is music? 4'33" in particular is meant to challenge the conventional definition of music.

He also described his music as being purpossless play, an extention of his Zen Buddhist beleifs. "this play is an affirmation of life-not an attempt to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we are living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out the way and lets it act of its own accord."

not for everyone of course, this cd is a good mix of cage's work, certainly a visionary composer whose legacy will last.

Extrovert & Glorious.......2005-07-05

All of the pieces on this disc are excellent, but I wish to call your attention specially to the title piece. I have in my collection most of the extant recordings of 4'33", & have admired most of them, but without doubt this is the most splendid recording available at the present day. The Amadinda Percussion Group is in top form throughout, bringing a sensitivity & brio to the piece that have rarely been approached. The tempi are a bit faster than I am accustomed to, but I found this a welcome change, & if anything, truer to Cage's intentions. The sound quality is first-rate: every nuance is finely chiselled, dynamics are tracked with absolute fidelity. I should note that audience noise is somewhat pronounced, but it really presents no obstacle to enjoyment of this magnificent rendition of 4'33".

Average customer rating:

Amadinda

Manufacturer: Hungaroton
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Percussion | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

Classical | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B000009I1V
Release Date: 1994-04-18

Average customer rating:

Astounding
Choose other records...
Have just ordered, and heard great things...

Music for 18 Musicians Live

Manufacturer: Hungaroton
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Minimal Techno | Techno | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B00018D3LO
Release Date: 2004-01-27

Tracks:

Music for 18 Musicians

Customer Reviews:

Astounding.......2006-12-12

I've listened to many versions of Reich's beautiful piece, but this one somehow feels the most rich. The opening Pulses section is mesmerizingly full in sound, and captures the feeling of beauty and mystery in the piece better than other productions, whose starts just feel flat in comparison.

Choose other records..........2004-07-08

1. This is totally subjective...
2. Your milage may vary.
3. Fast is not necessarily better. The recent recording of Alarm Will Sound illustrate that a fever pitch, while debatable in terms of fascination, does not work when the performance gets sloppy. There is the same problem in this rendering of "18."
4. Timbre is key; The real capper in this piece is the overall timbre. Commenting on this piece, Reich has alluded to the image of a seashore and waves. The classic ECM recording is the only one in my opinion that preserves this. Many of Reich's pieces, in my opinion, have suffered from too close microphone placement. The result is recordings often discribed as merely "interesting," by the uninitiated, wheras many listeners I've found are completed astounded by the ECM edition of "18."

There are some interesting bits of this performance, but overall not significantly different enough from Esemble Modern's recording. I recommend that all but completists look for the original ECM CD recordig, then to Ensemble Modern.

Have just ordered, and heard great things..........2004-05-20

Reich has said himself, (and you might want to note that he is not usually positive about Europian recordings of his own works), but he said that the Hungarians "..really know how to play this stuff!". Ive heard the first "Pulses" and it has an energetic sound, and the instruments have been captured well for a live recording. Guess I'll find out soon about the rest! Would be worth buying just to hear another version of the piece.

Works for Percussion 2: Complete Edition 1941-1950

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Works for Percussion 2: Complete Edition 1941-1950
Cage , Karolyi , Kocsis , and Amadinda Percussion Grp
Manufacturer: Hungaroton
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000056V94
Release Date: 2001-01-23

Average customer rating:

Varied effort.
Although all of it's quite astounding . . .

Mystery System

Manufacturer: Tzadik
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Africa | International | Styles | Music

General | International | Styles | Music

Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00023P47O
Release Date: 2004-06-29

Tracks:

Pattern Transformation
Moving Houses
Independence
New York To Neptune
Delta Space

Customer Reviews:

Varied effort........2005-11-16

"Mystery System" is a collection of compositions by Lukas Ligeti, son of composer Gyorgy Ligeti and percussionist in the downtown New York music scene.

Perhaps the most immediately noticable aspect of the music is its remarkable diversity-- the binding sound appears primarily to be rhythmically founded. Two of the pieces are soley percussion features by the Amadinda Percussion Group-- "Pattern Transformation" is a piece for two marimbas of unnerving rhythmic complexity which Ligeti states in the liner notes he had thought was "unplayable". A testament however to Ligeti's talents is that the piece feels entirely organic and utterly engaging. The second piece performed by this ensemble-- "Independence"-- is a moody percussion number that finds the ensemble performing on various instruments, from wood blocks to hand drums to what sounds to be a kit set. While the piece holds your interest, I found it a bit too loose in its elements to feel much for it as a hole.

Ligeti presents two pieces for strings on the record-- "Moving Houses" is scored for string quartet with the main theme being passed between violin and cello and (again) highly rhythmic and shifting backgrounds throughout. While the piece stretches fourteen minutes, it races by faster than you could notice. The second string piece I find far less engaging-- "New York to Neptune", scored for violin, cello and drum machine, is totally unexpected, frantic, but didn't move me as much as the rest of the record. On the other hand, it does end in under two minutes.

The album closes with a piano vs. sample duel, "Delta Space". I'm under the impression I'm the only person who doesn't like this one-- the piano performance-- closer to the Cecil Taylor concept of 88-tuned drums (albeit at a much more relaxed pace and infused with more traditional melodicism)-- is wrapped in samples of various exotic instruments. It starts off nice enough, but the samples feel totally at odds with the piano and the piece invariably drags.

The liner notes to the record contain commentary by Ligeti on each piece, and certainly helped shed light into the intent of some of the performances.

"Mystery System" is a good record, but I find that it misses nearly as frequently as it hits. Nonetheless, for those seeking adventerous composition, this is a worthwhile endeavor.

Although all of it's quite astounding . . ........2004-07-12

. . . the big news here's the last cut, "Delta Space," commissioned by New York University for pianist Kathleen Supové, with support from the Mary Flagler Clay Charitable Trust.

Lukas Ligeti, son of the famous Hungarian classical composer, György Ligeti, is an accomplished percussionist, composer, and world-music bridge-builder. With Mystery System, he has produced a disc of huge character and significance. Able to cross ethnic, musical, and cultural boundaries with absolute ease and aplomb, Ligeti fils, with his sophomore disc, arrives on the world music stage with a statement of gigantic presence.

Combining traditional musics with the latest techniques in computer and electronic soundscapes--he has, after all, spent two years at Stanford University's computer music lab, as well as collaborated with traditional musicians from places as diverse as Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Florida, Egypt, and the Ivory Coast--what emerges here is a kind of template for possible 21st Century musics. Some of it is so complex as to be nearly impossible to play ("Pattern Transformation")--though once played, it sounds entirely natural; other pieces, equally or even more complex ("Independence"), belie their rhythmic and timbral sophistication and come out sounding just gloriously worldly-jazzy.

But, as I say, the real action happens on "Delta Space." this number, ostensibly a solo piano piece, actually incorporates ultra-sophisticated computer-generated musical soundscapes that end up "competing" for playing-space with the pianist! Add in ethereal West-African kora and balafon samples that meld seamlessly with experimental composition and you have a brilliant amalgam of Nu music (of the Nu-est sort) with transcendent traditionalism: a combination hard to beat.