Whatever surprises Sony’s Ligeti Edition holds in store over the coming months, it isn’t likely to get any stranger than this. The majority of the music recorded here dates from Ligeti’s Hungarian period, that is, preceding his emigration to the West in 1956. Following that date, the composer’s strictly choral (as opposed to vocal) output has been sporadic, if inspired: the Hungarian Etudes and the Drei Phantasien (on texts by Friedrich Holderlin) date from the early 1980s, and Lux aeterna, a ‘spin-off’ of the monumental Requiem, from 1966. These pieces are fully representative of the composer’s mature period. To use his own metaphor of ‘clocks and clouds’ for his ongoing interest in various forms of process music, Lux aeterna falls squarely into the ‘cloud’ category, but the two later cycles occupy both positions, sometimes in the same instant. The use of canon, albeit skewed and distorted, is a feature of all three, and if you’re searching for a link with the rest of the music on this disc, that is probably as close as you’ll get. Canonic or quasi-canonic constructions abound throughout the earlier music (as in the lovely Two Canons), but it is expressed in more literal and traditional terms.
Ligeti’s roots in the Hungarian folkloristic tradition of Kodaly are everywhere in evidence, but even within these pieces there is considerable variety. Whatever its causes (censorship must have played a part, but doesn’t explain everything), the clear diatonicism of the early works puts Ligeti’s subsequent flirtations with post-modern tonal references (in the Drei Phantasien, for instance) into a clearer context; and in the Hungarian Etudes, he is very clearly revisiting those roots. Nevertheless, a fair number of these early works are clearly occasional pieces; that may be the drawback of ‘complete editions’ of this sort, but then again Ligeti is the first major contemporary figure to receive this sort of treatment, and it would be churlish to grumble. In any case, the presence of the earlier pieces, however uneven, reveals a side of Ligeti known hitherto only to specialists: enough to arouse anyone’s curiosity.
As to the performances, they do justice to the music’s infinite variety, and when sublety is turned out of doors (as on track 28), they can let their hair down too. The London Sinfonietta Voices have the technical range requisite to the more demanding mature pieces, and a wide dynamic range (as in the disc’s opening seconds, for instance). In that respect, the recording could perhaps have been more sensitive in capturing those extremes. Some of the early pieces have not been previously recorded. However, the Schola Cantorum Stuttgart under Clytus Gottwald have given us a more luminous Lux aeterna, and perhaps a more urgent account of the Hungarian Etudes.
A very strange disc, then, as I suggested at the start. Enthusiasts of choral music will enjoy this broad and wide-ranging recital, but as a way into this challenging yet approachable composer, this is perhaps not the most satisfying introduction. On the other hand, those already converted to Ligeti’s music will find it both stimulating and surprising.'