Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

The Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s music in the 1960s and ’70s established him as a leader of the European avant-garde — in succession to such figures as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose music represented the first wave of postwar innovation.

Fleeing Hungary after the 1956 uprising, Ligeti settled in Vienna and absorbed all the newest music he could, always aiming to be free of prevailing orthodoxies. The most distinctive feature of his first successful pieces was “micropolyphony,” a dense texture generated by many strands too intricate to be heard individually, yet combining to produce a texture of great richness. Apparitions (1959) and Atmosphères (1961) are examples of this style. At the same time, he adopted stylistic elements from his compatriot Béla Bartók and was always interested in folk music of all kinds.

In 1969, the American conductor Mario di Bonaventura programmed Ligeti’s Cello Concerto at the Congregation of the Arts Festival at Dartmouth College, of which he was the director, and offered Ligeti a commission to compose a piano concerto to be played by his brother Anthony, professor of music at Boston University. No deadline was set, in part because the composer was deeply involved in creating his “anti-opera” Le Grand Macabre, eventually performed in Stockholm in 1978.

Although Ligeti jotted down some ideas for the Piano Concerto in 1980, he made little real progress. He later said he had made “hundreds of attempts” to compose the concerto’s first page, pointing to a sprawling pile of manuscripts underneath his piano. So, he set it aside to work out some ideas on rhythm, mainly in a series of Études for piano. He took up the concerto again in 1985, completed three movements for a hearing in 1986, and wrote two additional movements for the premiere of the completed work in 1988. The soloist and conductor for both performances were the di Bonaventura brothers, as originally intended, and it was to Mario that the work was dedicated.

Ligeti’s aim in this music was to control separate levels of sound. In his busiest music, different rhythmic strands are clearly heard, but they do not relate audibly to one another or to the conductor’s beat, at least at first. From the listener’s point of view, the conductor can be seen giving a regular pulse, although the events in the music rarely, if ever, coincide with that beat. The accumulation of notes, in Ligeti’s argument, is a special application of Chaos Theory — though there is complex “chaos” throughout, patterns do eventually emerge from within. This is exceedingly difficult music for the soloist as well as the orchestra to play, and, despite appearances, very difficult for the conductor also.

The pianist is accompanied by a small orchestra (single winds and no timpani) with an immense variety of percussion and “street sounds” such as the slide whistle and ocarina. The first movement keeps the pianist busy, with a solo part that could be by Bartók were it not for the orchestra’s seemingly random intrusions. Folklike tunes with lopsided rhythms are heard from time to time.

The second movement is the longest, being in essence a lament, with many drooping, mournful phrases, as in the opening piccolo solo over a bass drone. The plaintive mood is gradually destroyed by several short, fierce entries and an accumulating sense of crisis. The scream of high-pitched whistles and a climactic siren bring it to a nightmarish conclusion, with the unexpected sound of a harmonica appearing from seemingly nowhere.

The third movement is a scherzo, reminiscent of Bartók’s “night music” near the start and of Messiaen’s forestful of birds later on.

The fourth movement is more enigmatic, with clearer textures interspersed with silences. Ligeti applied the mathematical concept of fractals in devising some of the rhythmic elements of this movement. (As the story goes, he was also amused to be told that some listeners could hear fragments of “Happy Birthday to You” in this movement.)

The fifth movement is the shortest of the concerto, beginning with a piano cadenza that quickly gives way to fairy-like music brimming with scales that reach up to the sky. The work concludes with a race to the finish between piano and xylophone, punctuated by the click of a woodblock.

This is music of astonishing complexity, but is also unmistakably exciting and brilliant. It was a breath of fresh air when it appeared in the 1980s and was widely embraced and imitated by younger composers.

— Hugh Macdonald

Hugh Macdonald is Avis H. Blewett Professor Emeritus of Music at Washington University in St. Louis. He has written books on Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, and Scriabin, as well as Music in 1853: The Biography of a Year.