Ligeti’s son rises as professor in Brussels
NewsThe Royal Conservatory of Brussels has appointed Lukas Liketi as Professor of Composition, starting immediately.
Lukas, 59, lives in Miami and will commute monthly until he moves to Belgium next year.
He is an Austrian percussionist and composer, focussed on African polyrhythms. He has previously been resident artist at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
photo: Ian-Elfinn Rosiu/RCB
And how does Ligeti’s son sound?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNr8ao-WCFk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Spl_D0N4V4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0le1dKDg-o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ2me14izlA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omqcUee6Fsc
It is the ‘cultivation’ of his father’s interest in the polyrhythms of West-African percussion ensembles, but (mostly) without the intervallic dimension. It’s rhythmic process music, so popular in the Western new music scene since Terry Riley’s ‘In C’ from those happy Californian sixties of the last century.
Of course Western young people, who never go to a concert of ‘classical music’ but crave for the life of a ‘composer’, and who have only pop in their ears, will flock to Brussels.
Isn’t this the same guy who is blocking his father’s works from publication?
Ligeti himself gave Fredrik Ullén permission to perform works such as ‘L’arrache-cœur’, but after his death the family apparently forced the recording to be pulled.
Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENVp7BoV3Cc
Ligeti Père composed with intervals.
PS:
That piano piece seems to ‘say’: I want something but it can’t be. It is quite touching in its tragedy.
In an interview Ligeti said: I feel locked-up between two impossible walls: on one hand, the entire Western tradition, on the other: the modern avantgarde. – He distanced himself from extreme modernism later in life, and sought inspiration in African percussion ensemble traditions.
That’s interesting news, do you have links to discussions of this? “L’arrache-coeur” was performed live (and by a pianist other than Ullén) as late as 2013, so if this is a decision by the estate, it must be a fairly recent one.
An extract of the score is here:
https://www.pianolibrary.org/composers/ligeti/etudes-2/#11b
The manuscript has been circulating in pianist circles for years. Ligeti gave Ullen (and others) permission to perform and record it.
After Ligeti’s death, the publisher (apparently due to family wishes) forced BIS to pull Ullen’s recording.
Schott are currently preparing some of the early works for publication. I spoke to Schott myself two years ago about “L’arrache-coeur”: they said they will not publish it under instructions from the Ligeti family.
I know some musicology colleagues have likewise had problems with Lukas. Thankfully, copies of all the manuscripts are being widely circulated amongst those who are interested, no matter what Lukas personally wants.
It is silly to want to prevent publication because it is a good piece.
The piece is expressive and musical, would that be the problem? No longer the willfully-forced mechanical structures, but ‘the heart that is ripped-out’ (l’Arrache-Coeur) – could not be more ‘romantic’. Maybe the son got embarrassed, that his dad got oldfashioned, and forgot his modernity?