The century of Ligeti – WebThéâtre :: News of shows, theater, opera, music, dance – Paris

GYÖRGY LIGETI DIED IN VIENNA IN 2006. It was in this city that he took refuge after fleeing the unfortunate Hungary victim, in 1956, of communist repression. A typical personality of a certain Mittel Europa, György Ligeti joined the Stockhausen studio in Cologne, crossed paths with Boulez and Berio, worked with Maurizio Kagel – but always wanted to keep his own. The fierce humor that characterizes some of his works (including The Great Macabrewhich can be heard on December 2 on Radio France) was to protect him against chapels and other doxologies.

Radio France did very well to entrust François-Xavier Roth with the responsibility of conducting three of the four concerts in a cycle devoted to the Hungarian composer. The first, given on December 23 by the Orchester national de France, made it possible to find two works which established Ligeti’s fame, if only via their use by cinema (we obviously think of 2001, A Space Odyssey) : Atmospheres et Distant. In both cases, these are works that we would describe as soaring, made of long instrumental performances which require careful set-up. The National Orchestra is doing its job in this type of exercise. Which perhaps explains on the contrarythe relative indifference with which the orchestra, for lack of in-depth rehearsals of this work, approaches the Danse Macabre by Liszt, played with great commitment by the pianist François Dumont. Good-natured brass, smiling strings: we are far from a relentless dance of death here.

Everything changes with The Wonderful Mandarin by Bartók, given here in its complete version, with the participation, at the end, of eight voices. We find a National Orchestra dazzling in virtuosity (the woodwinds!), very comfortable with changes of rhythm and tempo, skilled in negotiating all the slippages with which the score is strewn and in making the impetuous fugal dance a species of bacchanal. And as we have already noticed during a previous concertthis type of wild music full of unexpected things is more exotic than iridescent lakes at the Grove.

We will add that this concert also made it possible to hear the To research for organ by Ligeti, played by Lucile with delicate sensitivity.

Standing winds

We were unable to attend the concert given on November 26 as part of the Matins du national, but here is François-Xavier Roth again, on the 28th, this time at the head of his orchestra Les Siècles. On the program, firstly, the Chamber concert (Chamber Concerto, a nod to that of Alban Berg), a work conceived by Ligeti in 1969. A concise score, made up of delicately crafted instrumental sounds, with a frenetic third movement and extreme rhythmic precision, which can evoke, if we concentrate on the keyboard parts (harpsichord, piano, organ, celesta), certain pieces of vertigo such as Continuum or Casting. More systematic, the final Presto has something of a somewhat repetitive exercise.

The Concerto pour piano which follows, approached with aplomb and finesse by Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, is less a concerto than a score for a small orchestra (equipped with an ocarina!) with principal piano. Installed on the garden side, away from the other musicians, the piano never interacts with them and on the contrary blends into the instrumental ensemble. The beginning may evoke Bartók – notably the Music for piano, celesta and percussion – but it is the second movement that is most appealing. Initially relying on the flute alone, this “Lento e deserto” gradually brings each of the instruments into a trance-like crescendo.

In the second part of the concert, François-Xavier Roth conducts the Third Violin Concerto by Mozart, with a radiant Isabelle Faust, and the Symphony No. 35 «Haffner» (it is true that he has only just left The Magic Flute at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées!). The strings without vibrato work wonders in this music, and the conductor likes to play the upright winds, slightly modifying the arrangement of the ensemble if in a particular movement the flutes fade into the background or, on the contrary, the oboes must assert themselves. Energy, dynamics, phrasing – Mozart as we like him.

Illustration : György Ligeti and Marion Kalter (dr)

György Ligeti: Distant, Atmosphere, To research (+ Liszt, Bartók). François Dumont, piano; Lucile Dollat, organ; National Orchestra of France, dir. François-Xavier Roth. Radio France, Thursday November 23, 2023.

György Ligeti: Kammerkonzert for thirteen instruments, Concerto pour piano (+ Mozart). Isabelle Faust, violin; Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, piano. The Centuries, dir. François-Xavier Roth. Radio France, Tuesday November 28, 2023.

Next meeting with György Ligeti: The Great Macabre, Saturday December 2 at 8 p.m. at the Radio France Auditorium, with the Orchester national de France, dir. François-Xavier Roth (in co-production with the Festival d’Automne).