Ligeti Violin Concerto

May 7, 2005 at 08:51 PM · ligeti wrote a violin concerto?

May 7, 2005 at 09:08 PM · yes. He did. Personally I dont like it, but I have a friend that loves this concerto and he's not even a violinist, he's a pianist.

May 8, 2005 at 06:26 AM · Some pieces seems to take a long time to understand this is propably one of them.

It is also rumoured to be one the toughest violinconcertos to learn, period.

May 8, 2005 at 06:31 AM · It's being performed here in Melbourne this week by Australian violinist Richard Tognetti. There's footage of him playing it on the ABC documentary 'Musical Renegades'. I think the piece is incredible, and he plays it extremely well.

May 8, 2005 at 05:11 PM · Will he record it?

May 10, 2005 at 04:18 AM · i've never heard it and had no idea he wrote a concerto. such a shame nobody championed it...

May 10, 2005 at 06:48 AM · There's little doubt the Ligeti VC is the least played of the major violin concerti. I have the version performed by Saschko Gawriloff on DG 439808, as I saw him in concert play both the original and complete versions of the piece; he was good enough a fiddler to be one of the concertmasters of the Berlin Philharmonic many years ago. At about the time of the composition of this concerto, I attended talks the composer gave on his music in London. When discussing I think, the chamber concerto, a lady interrupted him, asking, "Mr Ligeti, why can't we hear any nice melody in your works?" He smiled scurrilously, and retorted instantly, "Madam, I don't understand your question!" Having heard the composer talk a few times, one repetitive term he uses in reference to what people might call the orchestral tutti, or orchestral texture in general, is 'grid' or 'grid structure'. I never heard him refer to melodic line versus accompaniment; indeed, though there is fragmented melody in the concerti, Ligeti is much more interested in the interplay of polyrhythm and polyharmonics. Although he speaks quite good English, his concepts were rather opaque to understand. He speaks of the solo line in his concerti having a 'pointing function', not a melodic one. This term is derived from semiology, which is the study of signs. He's also versed in modern literary theory, for he was clearly alluding to the postmodernist contention that a sign can't be taken for granted in bridging the gap from its 'pointing function' and a final meaning. What all this means is that in concerti like the one for violin, the solo instrument wasn't there mainly to toss melodic and developmental passages between itself and the rest, as in Vivaldi or Beethoven etc, but to 'point' and comment on the multiplicity of harmonic and rhythmic thickets in the orchestral 'grid'. Ligeti together with Xenakis are probably the two major post war composers with high level mathematical education. If people talk about JS Bach's works as having 'mathematical beauty' to them, Ligeti is only reflecting in his works the cultural developments of his times, just as Bach did, without regard to whether either his performers or listeners are capable of absorbing these developments. However, if one goes on the lookout for a classical linear motivic line in the Ligeti concerti, as he said, she'll be getting the wrong end of the stick, and find the listening utterly bemusing.

May 10, 2005 at 07:51 AM · Not only a very difficult solo part, but tricky string parts. Scordatura in the 1st violin and tricky counting which will get you lost! The violins are divided into 4 parts.

May 10, 2005 at 04:53 PM · "Ligeti together with Xenakis are probably the two major post war composers with high level mathematical education."

Don´t forget Boulez. He is the best mathematician of them.