Ligeti: Musica ricercata No. 7 | Pierre-Laurent Aimard explores the work

[@davidstork5604]

I have a long semi-professional second career as an orchestral musician, and have long loved Ligeti's orchestral music, in particular Atmospheres and Lux Aeterna (used in "2001: A Space Odyssey"). A few weeks ago I went to a retrospective/celebration of Ligeti's music at Stanford University (where Ligeti visited in 1972) and heard the Musica ricercata for the first time. The no. 7 was so sublime, so extraordinary, it literally brought me to tears. How had I never heard this piece!! In my many decades of studying music (including basic composition), listening very seriously to music and performing and recording music, I had never heard a piece quite like this. The right hand reminds one of several of Erik Satie's Gymnopedie, and the use of ostinato is mildly reminiscent of Keith Jarrett's Kyoto Concert encore (1984), but Ligeti's juxtaposition of the seven-note ostinato was brilliant... it introduces "space," as so well explained by Aimard here. And the beauty, elegance, sense of longing, of the plaintive right hand melody becomes all the more sublime through this juxtaposition. Immediately upon coming home I listened to no. 7 (on KZbin) dozens of times, studying the score. The next day I tried playing the piece on my piano. Like all great music, one hears MORE each time you hear it.

[@vhego]

Indeed I’ve always felt this piece had a 3D feeling when listening to it, stunning. A genius composer

[@vhego]

Plus: it’s funny how such an advanced piece is actually still making use of Bach’s counterpoint

[@petercroce8051]

Magic

[@roryreviewer6598]

I love this one, especially since Ligeri uses this melody again in the haunting second movement of his violin concerto

[@ilirllukaci5345]

Thank you.

[@phacus]

Wow, this is content! Thanks *so* much!

[@TonBil1]

"Ligeti, already in the fifties, interested in other dimensions in music." It is this re-invention of music that I so much adore and admire in Ligeti. And Aimard one of his finest interpreters, of course.

[@jadseif8102]

Thank you for the analysis. It's my favorite Ligeti's piece, a masterpiece.

[@aktasluna]

when i was practicing this piece, i was playing other pieces like a bach prelude or a chopin nocturne over the left hand.

[@eduardoduarte9230]

Great analysis Pierre, what kind of exercises do you recommend me to study on my quest to dominate this song, I tend to synchrone (6/4) after tiring my hand from 7/4

[@Autostade67]

People hear the 'Requiem' (or even 'Atmosphere's) when they watch '2001' of 'Lontano' in 'The Shining' and many immediately decide they should steer clear of Ligeti (which is a pity, because along with Penderecki's 'Threnody for...', the Requiem is one of the most harrowing pieces of music yet composed...and what is music to be if not to thrust to the extremities of all experience? It's also a bit hypocritical because for most lay people - me included - those films were their first exposure to this genius), but his 'juvenile' piece, 'Musica ricercata' is a testament to the simple beauty he could achieve with the polyrhythm of No. 7, some of the settings of Hungarian songs and the icy micro-polyphony of 'Lux aeterna' Why he isn't regarded with more conviction as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century I'll never know.

[@audunstolpe7408]

But he is

[@Autostade67]

ARgh - I should proofread - "(or even 'Atmospheres') when they watch '2001 OR 'Lontano'..."