Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 06/08/2005, uploaded on 03/01/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Two Etudes from Book Two    György Ligeti

Etude "En Suspens," from Book Two

György Ligeti composed the eight wonderful Piano Etudes of the Deuxième Livre, between 1988 and 1993, a few years after the equally important six Etudes of the Premier Livre (1985). Here Ligeti pursues unprecedented effects, and to attain them he asks of the interpreter an almost superhuman virtuosity, often providing no traditional structural reference. Exemplary of this are pieces like Etude No.10, Der Zauberlehrling (the Sorcerer's Apprentice), a sort of obsessive moto perpetuo in which a sketchy melody laboriously tries to emerge then fades away, drowned by an iridescent phantasmagoria of sound. In other pieces, like the beautiful Etude No.11, En suspens, one hears a return to impressionistic aesthetics.     Lucille Chung

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.