Some of "Five Pieces for Piano Four-Hands" are among the earliest of Ligeti's works, written when the composer was a mere 20 years old. All these early piano pieces are rather immature, a simple exploration of an instrument Ligeti encountered later in life than usual. Some, like "Three Wedding Dances" show much progress, but are rooted in peasant folk rhythms and bear little resemblance to the Ligeti of later years. I am a great fan of Ligeti, but frankly these first piano works are dull. One notable exception is the sequence "Capriccio No.1-Invention-Capriccio No. 2" which, although written in 1947, is reminiscent of Ligeti's superb "Musica Ricercata" series for piano featured on volume 3.
"Three Pieces for Two Pianos" dates from twenty-five years later, when Ligeti had already made his micropolyphonic breakthrough (and was in some cases beginning to abandon it). The halting, jerking "Monument" is, I think, the first appearance on this disc of the Ligeti we all know and love. "Selbstportrait mit Reich und Riley (und Chopin ist auch dabei)" is a tribute to the two American minimalist composers and includes a brief allusion to Chopin's music, which Ligeti considers protominimalist. It is indicated to be played "Presto: so schnell und so gleichmaessig wie moeglich", and Aimard and Kataeva really handle the unforgivingly flowing nature of the piece.
The three harpsichord pieces are quite interesting because they are generally unknown. The highlight is "Hungarian Rock" (1978), a frenetic piece which sounds like video-game music gone horribly wrong. Chojnacka really shines here and on the following "Continuum" (1968), which in its eerie micropolyphony stands with the best of his works of the 1960's.
Ligeti's organ pieces are subtle and I'm not sure I "get" them yet. "Ricercare" (1951) is Ligeti's first exploration of the instrument. "Harmonies" (1967) is rather reminiscent of the Ligeti's "Atmospheres" in its waves of sound and concentration on pure timbre, and the following "Coulee" continues this in a considerably higher range.
The organ pieces, and the disc, end with "Volumina" (1961/62), one of Ligeti's earliest hits in the West. This is one of Ligeti's finest works, and the sound quality of this performance is much better than the 1968 recording recently reissued by Deutsche Grammaphon. (This is in itself surprising, as DG's reissues usually sound better than more recent recordings.) It might even be a better performance, as I find it difficult to judge the earlier recording because of its inaudibility.
The booklet contains, as usual, notes written by Ligeti himself and, as always, they are full of enlightening anecdotes and humorous remarks. Here you can read about how the first rehearsal "Volumina" burnt out the organ of Gothenburg's cathedral, and how--in a parenthetical remark that could be dead serious or a joke--Ligeti "will be overcome by revenge fantasies" forever eagainst the repressive regimes of Hungary.
While I think Ligeti is the greatest living composer, and the two series collecting his works are certainly worth getting, the unexciting piano pieces make this a lesser installment in Gyorgy Ligeti Edition. This should wait until one already has, for example, the first volume "String Quartets" or the second "A Capella Choral Works."
The disc starts with a collection of previously unrecorded early pieces for two pianos. Most of them aren't particularly interesting, but the Polyphonic Etude (written as early as 1943) is a striking premonition of Ligeti's later preoccupations. For that matter, fans of the Musica ricercata (or the Six Bagatelles) will recognize the first two movements of the 1950 Sonatina. Kataeva and Aimard bring off these minor pieces with aplomb.
Following this, we hear the Invention (a rather dry attempt at writing hyper-chromatic Bach) and the two somewhat Bartokian Capriccios. Again, these are minor Ligeti; Kataeva's recording of them probably isn't quite as good as Ullen's on BIS (fill-ups to his underrated reading of the first two books of Etudes), but it's still perfectly acceptable.
After this, we reach mature Ligeti. The three pieces for two pianos are amongst the closest Ligeti got to American minimalism--indeed the middle movement is somewhat clumsily entitled Selbsportrait mit Reich und Riley (und Chopin ist auch dabei). Kataeva and Aimard play well here, without entirely erasing memories of the Kontarsky brothers on a now-reissued recording for DG.
No complaints at all about Elisabeth Chojnacka's rendition of the harpsichord pieces. The mean-tone tunings of the Passacaglia ungherese and Hungarian Rock counterpoint their intentionally bland rhythm. The gem amongst the three pieces, though, is Continuum, a frantic toccata throwing up strange patterns and illusions, which comes off wonderfully here.
The four organ pieces end this disc. The Ricercare (the organ version of the last piece in Musica ricercata) is a gloomy chromatic Frescobaldi pastiche, while Harmonies is an apparently simplistic set of chords distorted by tampering with the organ's pressure mechanism. Coulee, by contrast, is an organ version of Continuum, which sounds remarkably different from the original. Last of all, is the graphically scored tone-cluster piece Volumina. This is a phenomenal, apocalyptic piece, a clear ancestor of the Requiem, and is exceedingly powerful in live performance. Unfortunately, I don't feel Zsigmond Szathmary's performance here comes close to matching Gerd Zacher on DG or the phenomenal Hans-Ola Ericsson on BIS (my own favourite for the complete organ works, coupled with an excellent Schoenberg Variations on a Recitative).
Despite reservations, then, this disc is still worth considering--particularly as Sony's website indicates that the company is in the process of deleting the entire Ligeti Edition.
