G. Ligeti - Passacaglia Ungherese Harpsichord Mario Trilha

[padaneis]

Great contrapuntal piece. And what a texture!

[VictorMLudwig]

please get someone else to do the filming next time :D

[SSOzzy]

Ligeti has his way with the harpsichord

[fcouperin]

A competent player in a well sounding harpsichord, but the piece is really an abomination. Common practice harmony is just one dialect of music, sure, but we ought to be permitted to have our preferences. I wouldn't play this even to my worst enemy ; ), but to each his own, anyway. Speaking of novelty, to call someone a genious is so passé...

[gonrolgonrol]

Very interesting piece :)

[Steinbach1984]

This ain't the Ligeti we know! But I don't care, it sounds pleasing, especially after the sound clouds of the continuum...

[LeMarxNouveau]

Comment faire du neuf avec du vieux? Demander à Ligeti. Et vive le clavecin!!!

[mercoid]

This is beautiful.

[ghostwriter11]

The 18th century had Bach. The 20th had Ligeti. Pure genius.

[barrythecello]

beautiful

[orion777temp]

awesome, i like it its so dramatic.

[adordunio1]

Met Ligeti in 1971 and he talked about how he allowed Kubrick to use his music illegally in 2001:A Space Odyssey, , because he could not place a monetary value on the international publicity he received. This piece seems to show a distinctly Hungarian sense of humor!!!

[FernandRaynaud]

An enormous advantage of 20th century music is that you can't go wrong -- impossible to tell what is a mistake and what is deliberate cacophony. If Any 18th century composer heard this he would shake his head and recommend a bleeding. Any 19th century composer would shake his head and do it.

[XVIIIMusica]

These misunderstand about the music for your own time its not new, and seems to be occurred very often. Just to give a couple of examples: Rameau was described by Rosseau as cacophony and not music at all. Bachs polyphony was considered by the French encyclopaedists as German barbaric music, and one can keep going on through music history: Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Liszt, and Stravinsky. Therefore in all periods the new music was quite a shock for many listeners.

[infernobegins]

Your first sentence is somewhat unintelligible. I think you mean to say, "new music is very often misunderstood in its own time." I don't necessarily agree with that, as many musicians were given much accolades. Of course, there is always someone who does not like so-and-so, and has to make a disparaging comment. I like this piece, and modern music in general, but I think that it is a little simplistic (a fault I often find with modern music).

[7yv]

Which color is more red: black or grey?

Would you say you can't go wrong with either?

;-)

[3cplantin]

Wow.  You just missed out on 109 years of music history!

[FernandRaynaud]

Didn't miss much, the whole theory of the avant garde has not panned out. The music that was "ahead of its time" and initially rejected, was absorbed and accepted within a few years, e.g. Stravinsky. The 12 tone, Cage and beyond are still playing to that same "elite" clique, and in 100 years, besides horror movie soundtracks, has not been accepted by the public that has no problem with Debussy. My point was just that when all the old rules are discarded, who is to say what is a wrong note?

[3cplantin]

Um... composers. Musicians. Audiences. People used to say that Prokofiev's 7th Piano Sonata was pure cacophony -- now it's his most popular. Now that I've thought about it, I'd have to agree: you didn't miss much by discarding most of art music of the 20th century -- you and the masses. If you don't like it, you don't miss it. It wasn't written with you in mind, anyway. There are nevertheless millions who love it, including most of the greatest musicians of the last 100 years.

[7yv]

This Ligeti piece is not avant-garde nonsense. It's a wonderful and lively piece, and a great example of modern JI music that's not overly static or new-agey.

[capnpayne]

yeah clearly this is just random notes stuck together, right guys? by the way i am a hillbilly who hoots on a moonshine jug and married my own cousin

[capnpayne]

i mean honestly are you so completely tone deaf that you can't track what is going on in this piece

[pdclift]

@FernandRaynaud Also, you ought to research pythagorean tuning. Then you would understand a little better what is happening musically and perhaps be less dismissive.

[3miltho3]

I'm not a fan...

[DJPsionix]

If this sounds odd to any of you guys, it's because digitally compressed audio struggles with GREAT difficulty to reproduce harpsichord sounds. The lower the quality, the more the notes gets munged. Basically there's a bunch of odd noise happening at the same time as the notes.

A high quality MP3 link would be very nice. This is the first time I've heard this piece. And it's really cool.

[stringph]

No, the basic motif does not include any wolf intervals at all. However, its harmonic and melodic progressions are somewhat unusual compared to the tonal music that meantone was historically used for. It doesn't sound strange because of a fault in the tuning- it sounds strange because it's Ligeti.

If played in equal temperament the piece would not be any less dissonant, but would lose most of its individual character. That's why the composer said otherwise!

[Bachlives2]

This piece is nice but it shows the wolf intervals. To show why 12-TET is better for this type of music....

[chewreece]

Friend; This is in meantone, but the intervals you play enhance the wolves not the just. Judging from the date of composition it was probably a joke or a propaganda piece to demonstrate the "superiority" of ET.

[TritoneSub]

I'd suggest you do some research on Ligeti and his connection to the intonation pioneer Harry Partch, as well as studying the score to see where the diminished thirds are (i.e., melodic major seconds that, due to the meantone, are a comma too wide or narrow). These are probably what is making your ear spin a bit.

[chewreece]

touche

[dolofonos]

I need a Tylenol.

[ilanvoyager]

Thanks to YouTube I've discovered this beautiful composition...a XX century hommage to XVIII century music

[chriswales19]

Bravo ! I myself just tackled this piece, and found it a wonderfully rewarding piece of music, this is a great recording, excellent !

[XVIIIMusica]

Thank you for your kindness!

In my opinion is one the greatest harpsichord's pieces from the XX century.

[7yv]

Fantastic! Fanfares, played by Aimard, and this piece, played by you, are probably my Ligeti favorites!