Music and Recording Reviews

György Ligeti: Violin, Piano & Românesc Concertos
Isabelle Faust, violin; Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, piano; Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth, cond.
Harmonia Mundi HMM905382 (CD; reviewed as 24/96 WAV). 2025. Jiri Heger, prod. and eng.
Performance *****
Sonics ****½

Equally defiant of the Nazis and the Stalinists, Ligeti was a twice-burned iconoclast whose life and music defied convention. Ligeti fused the wild edges of Hungarian folk tradition with influences from Romania, the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and his own unruly imagination. No other composer sounds like him.

Approach Ligeti's music with your senses sharp—it doesn't always show you where it's headed, but the ride is unforgettable. No wonder Stanley Kubrick found it ideal for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Even when the destination is unclear, the journey itself can be thrilling. His music demands active listening—there's no coasting through it.

Nothing prepares you for the Violin Concerto, in which the soloist spins gossamer thread while marimbas, ocarinas, xylophones, and other percussion swarm, clash, and shimmer. After a dense, agitated opening, the music slips into a brief passage of quiet, aching beauty; then four ocarinas tip everything back into disarray. The third movement spirals into chaos before giving way to something stark and luminous, by turns hollow, claustrophobic, and radiant.

The Concerto Românesc evokes a more folkloric madness; at one point I pictured dervishes high on paprika. The astonishing Piano Concerto surrounds a modern Steinway with ocarinas, chromatic harmonica—even a slide whistle. Beneath the eccentric instrumentation lies a structural rigor that rewards repeat listening.

Interleaved with two short works by another Hungarian modernist, György Kurtág (b. 1926), this is a deeply satisfying and occasionally disorienting journey through musical extremes. Performances are fearless, and the engineering captures every texture.

This is Ligeti at full voltage: bold, bewildering, and entirely alive.—Jason Victor Serinus

Tcherepnin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky: Prelude to La Princesse Lointaine; Capriccio Espagnol; Orchestral Suite
NDR Radiophilharmonie/Stanislav Kochanovsky
Harmonia Mundi HMM905392 (CD). Rita Hermeyer, prod.; Daniel Kemper, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****

If you think of Capriccio espagnol as a shopworn Pops staple, allow Stanislav Kochanovsky to convince you otherwise. From the opening with its proud strut to the dashing stretto coda, he takes nothing for granted, allowing the clarinet and flute room to inflect their solos and infusing the Fandango with a nice weighty swing. The NDR forces play with alert enthusiasm. The horns are tentative—pulling in their little duet, smudgy in the fanfares launching track 5—but the English horn conveys real yearning, and unison strings are incisive.

I doubt most listeners will know the Tcherepnin. It opens in fervent, ruminative "Dawn on the Moskva" mode. A lyrical oboe theme expands into a Glazunov-style climax (but better); a faster, folklike section follows. The coda's reflective fade reminded me of Borodin. Kochanovsky shapes it with purpose, underlining peaks with firm landings. Placing this evocative miniature ahead of the Tchaikovsky enhances the contrast and highlights the program's range.

The Tchaikovsky Suite rounds out the program and makes for a fitting close. The violins float in easily, with a soft attack, and woodwinds maintain the airiness; the development juxtaposes balletic lightness with mild turbulence. A grim, dark-toned Valse follows, livened by a reed-against-string passage. Scampering staccato reeds mark the charming Scherzo; later, the brass are pillowy, the final cadence emphatic. The finale, a 19-minute theme and variations, runs the gamut from plaintive reed chorales through joyful tutti outbursts to, in the second variation, a virtuoso display for scurrying violins. The soft strings can be granulose; otherwise, the playing is excellent. Strongly recommended—for the repertoire, the sequence, and the insight behind it.—Stephen Francis Vasta