The Ligeti Project II

Opting to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey on TV when I was ill with chicken-pox as a teenager wasn't the best choice, as the flashing imagery and discordant music only served to make me feel worse than I had before. If I thought about it at all, I may have supposed the more terrifying soundtrack cues had been composed specifically for the film. Not so: this was an unhappy early encounter with the music of György Ligeti.

In 1999 a colleague was listening to something on a Discman-style personal stereo that provoked a variety of grimaces and, ultimately, a big smile. Upon my inquiring what it was, he lent me the CD - called Wien Modern - which included Ligeti's works 'Atmosphères' (one of the pieces used in 2001) and 'Lontano'. Startled and moved to similar facial contortions by what I heard, I would have bought a copy for myself had the album still been available.

A couple of years later there came the first in a series of five CD releases collecting Ligeti's orchestral output: The Ligeti Project. I bought them all as they came out. Volume II is my favourite of the set, including as it does both 'Atmosphères' and 'Lontano', albeit in cooler & less exuberant performances than I'd heard on Wien Modern. It doesn't get played often, but there are occasions when it's just the right thing, such as Christmas: for years I've been in the habit of listening to harsh mid-century modern classical on Christmas mornings, as a bracingly sour aperitif to the glut of sweetness ahead. Among the other compositions on the disc is an early work, the delightful 'Concert Românesc', which is an altogether atypical in his œuvre in its conventional melodies and driving rhythms,

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