György Ligeti: Musica ricercata No. 7

Introducing the Ligeti Project, a new initiative with the Klavier-Festival Ruhr. Follow along with the score and find other educational resources on this this free, multilingual website → bit.ly/1fPmJuK

[@paulcrossley9825]

It's incredible to think this piece is 6 decades old. The whole of Musica Ricercata sounds so modern, so fresh and so unlike what people think of as 20c music. I love Ligeti's less tuneful work but wish he'd written more like this - he clearly had a gift for melody.

[@ciupenhauer]

I hate it when composers CAN, but choose not to write popular melodies. Same with Strauss

[@joediamo4322]

yes for sure, so interesting and beautiful and for Ligeti so simple!

[@andream.464]

@@ciupenhauerStrauss didn’t write popular melodies?😂

[@TimCutts]

I don’t think it’s Ligeti’s melody - I think it’s borrowed (there’s another video where Pierre-Laurent talks about this movement - I think he says it’s a traditional folk melody, or perhaps it was Bartok, I can’t remember)

[@mrmfwettlaufer3785]

One of the most beautiful pieces Ligeti ever wrote.

[@dmfus]

I love it too.. 😊

[@BillVincent]

That left hand gives me cramps just thinking about it.

[@christianlow7676]

played it, can confirm the cramps. ;)

[@igo.spekkyjarvonvreich]

how crazy difficult it must be to keep that ostinato perfectly controlled for so long

[@hongdenny2593]

메트릭스와 고즈넉한 마을의 조합. 왼손은 미래를 오른손은 과거를 두 손은 두 사이에서 불안한 현대인의 모습을 표상한다.

[@calebhu6383]

This theme was also used to great effect in his Violin Concerto.

[@MrAlcides1611]

Un Pianiste sans égal. Je n'ai pas des mots pour exprimer la joie de cette musique. Merci, Maestro!

[@anthonyjensen8347]

That left hand is so smooth.

[@tonykellen8989]

Excellent performance of an excellent composition.

[@xs10tl1]

I know how hard it is to make this look easy. The genius of the piece and your performance is the melody floating over the grid. Wonderful.

[@anyanorton8372]

Well done! Khatia Buniatishvili also plays this extremely well, in my humble opinion. I don't know how they play the left hand at such a different tempo from the right. Wonderful piece.

[@peteroselador6132]

I have a few friends who have played it. One of them chose to practice the left hand alone until she could do it without thinking. She then started doing other things with her right…Reading a book, or eating a snack, all while the left hand soldiered on at the keys. Then, she was ready to completely separate the hands as this piece requires.

[@dspannplayspiano]

Has the same pristine touch as Pletnev, caressing the keys like fire and ice colliding. Also this piano, which appears older, is also pristine.

[@dspannplayspiano]

@Briana Ankels Hello there, I was just talking about his gentle contrast of loud and soft.

[@annebrezovski5213]

Bravo! Cette pièce est redoutable à déchiffrer et à mettre en place, vous la jouez avec tant d’expression, comme si c’était facile… l’essence du grand art…

[@PepekBezlepek]

wow, this is incredibly beautiful .. took me 32 years to find

[@alessandroterreni4805]

Bellezza suprema... difficilissimo da suonare e straordinariamente facile da ascoltare...

[@gretareinarsson7461]

Awesome pianism. The control of tone and dynamics, especially in the left hand, is amazing.

[@TheMindCrushGroup]

Oh man! I live his technique! You can really see (specially right hand), how every movement corresponds to the articulation of the music. Nice. Not often you see this.

[@somecho]

It's like he's playing Bach

[@MarkHopewell]

An amazing pianist. Subscribed with pleasure.

[@JoelJuanQuiPiano]

Wooow, Wonderful!!!! Beautiful and what a control of the left hand.

[@nuevopianista]

exquisito siempre , es una de mis favoritas espero poderla aprender pronto , un gran saludo y agradecimiento maestro Pierre, quin como usted que pudo conocer a Ligeti y trabajar con El... admiro mucho su trabajo ... un gran abrazo desde Perú

[@campanillalerele2057]

Espectacular!! Bravo!!!

[@josephasghar]

Lovely contrast of rubato and mechanical playing.

[@artetnaturevideos6997]

Hello, Thank you very much for this beautiful music ! I select it for my playlist Famous french classical pianists. Best wishes ! Jean-Charles Bourquin, in France

[@tp-vz7od]

Kiehtova poikkeus Ligetin tuotannossa. Pianon mestari soittaa!

[@うさぎちゃんねる-m9w]

Oh wow my left arms so hurt!!!!you are so good smoth

[@javierbarragan614]

Precioso. Sensacional. Una izquierda magistral. Me encanta, gracias

[@diegosepulveda2222]

Te falta oír la cagada que se mandó Ligeti en "Atmosphères" y "Lux Aeterna". Tienes suerte de no haberlas escuchado.

[@generalbullmoose]

Mind boggling! Staccato in the left hand, 3-part legato in the right. Geez!

[@Gonzeloth]

Absolutely amazing!

[@bobbyneal6322]

W0W! Excellent! Who needs a sequencer? Right? :)

[@khh3643]

아름다운 앵콜 감사합니다

[@AlejandroSanAntonio]

Maestro... Give us please an advice how you play that Ostinato without getting tired hahaha. I've tried it and in one minute my hand starts to die haha. Hope next year I can do a trip to Köln. :)

[@ethermod307]

Get yourself a good teacher and he'll tell you all about it.

[@artemlyubchenko3022]

Just practice it more and it will be easy. I’ve tried practicing it for a while, now it’s easy for me.

[@xs10tl1]

Step One: play it correctly a few million times.

[@bertpraxenthaler5543]

@@ethermod307 😆👍🏻

[@ethermod307]

Who the fuck pj Harvey live

[@spikymuck3280]

Thank you. Brilliant.

[@jorgeisaacgonzalezprieto6590]

Que música tan hermosa.

[@Quim1441]

Incredible maestro.

[@robertadeangelis7023]

fantastico.....come fà non stancarsi...

[@feraudyh]

I find this easy to play. I just press on the appropriate link and play buttons with my mouse.

[@rosemaynog7]

Maravilhosa. Montei 1 desenho coreográfico inteiro agora. Gostaria de poder filmar as imagens mentais que sua música me trouxeram

[@ChelseaH1]

Wow! Well done sir!

[@BenSadounJeremie]

Phénoménal

[@WinrichNaujoks]

Dear Mr Aimard, please tell me the secret of how to practice this piece. Thank you!

[@jakeevans1574]

Willi Hansen play the left hand slow, then speed up the tempo gradually. Then try and do other things while still playing the left hand (look around the room, scroll Instagram, etc.). The goal is to be able to play the left hand without consciously thinking about it. Work through the right hand until it’s at least semi-memorized. Then put hands together. Go slow. Keep the left hand slow. Set a metronome to a moderately slow tempo and let the metronome be the tempo of your right hand. Count the beats out loud and play, and do it again until you can play them together. The left hand is very, very light. Too much pressure and you’ll tire out (the una corda/left pedal helps with this tremendously). Rotate your hand around the wrist and play with your whole arm so you’re not relying on just your fingers. You want it to feel like you’re just rolling your fingers on a table, nice and easy-like.

[@skelly790]

At the end of a video is a link where he explains how to do that. The site requires flash and is a bit clunky (unlike Mr Aimard's playing) but the info you require is there: www.explorethescore.org/gyorgy-ligeti-piano-works-inside-the-score-musica-ricercata-no-7.html You need to press the button marked "Performing the Music".

[@chimmichanga1221]

@@jakeevans1574 this so helpful, thank you

[@laburgy]

Do you think this piece influenced Philip Glass? Steve Reich? It is so modern minimalistic

[@charliewaterman3325]

It's fairly similar to the style of Terry Riley, an ostinato bassline under a modal melody. He was another one of the American minimalists but I think that this is more similar to his style than Reich or Glass's.

[@johnwickson3412]

Go! Neither Shining nor space odyssey, but hectic.

[@pelegrino791]

There is no other pianist like him with a repertoire from Bach to Ligeti ! The others concentrate mostly on the "classical" and romantic era.

[@BetoTroviscal]

listen to "on the run" pink floyd. waters used this base melody to recreate it

[@rainerm.8168]

I really like this piece. But is it really so extraordinary. I mean there is a simple melodic line and a basso ostinato. Kind of modern baroque, or?

[@j.e.hernandez9721]

I am of the opinion that the brilliance of this piece is in Ligeti's ability to write something that is so incredibly idiomatic for the piano, and simultaneously gives an effect of something that is not immediately transparent as to how the sound is being produced. The ending, sounding like a ball bouncing faster as it loses kinetic energy, is also rather brilliant.

[@eduardoduarte9230]

You said in the other video of this song that hands are “independent”, did you meant that technically they are not supposed to coincide “most of the time”? I see that in the score that there are two metronome speeds, 88 and 116 which is 29/22 but the left hand does not have bars. Can you explain a little bit more on the technique to approach this piece?

[@AnAverageItalian]

I think the reason behind the absence of bars in the left hand is twofold: firstly, to really accentuate the fact that this is an even ostinato. Think about it: when you play a normal piece of music, it's normal to slightly accentuate every time a bar is found to, you know, accentuate the beat. But here, it's all even, there's no pausing, no accent, it's all just a sea of notes lightly caressing the melody Also, it's practical: imagine write a _simile_ for every single bar of the piece. At that point, just say "repeat al fine" and boom, you're done, no need for bars

[@cadriver2570]

Does anyone love finger substitutions more than the French? :D

[@guigui9344]

😂😂

[@runsofa7654]

WAAAAA

[@Quim1441]

Is that even possible?

[@AsrielKujo]

no, in fact no pianist has ever played this before

[@prundonmcavoy7155]

@@AsrielKujo fascinating

[@zathrasyes1287]

Sounds like Philip Glass

[@gustavobonellivasquez3370]

Sounds a little like progressive rock.

[@OE1FEU]

Unplayable. And yet he plays it.