Ligeti: Violin Concerto, Lontano, Atmosphères & San Francisco Polyphony

Featuring

Hannu Lintu
Benjamin Schmid
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
György Ligeti

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Compositional Technique

Micropolyphony, a technique where an orchestra divided into small units plays the same motif in canon with short delays, creates a dense, unbroken sound that shifts organically.

Performer Biography

Benjamin Schmid, the violinist on this recording, has won multiple international awards, including the Carl Flesch Competition in London in 1992, and performs with leading ensembles worldwide.

Recording & Production

This recording was produced with support from the Finnish Music Foundation (MES), and the sessions took place in Helsinki Music Centre in 2012 and 2013.

Composer's Artistic Vision

György Ligeti, though an uncompromising Modernist, was practically a Romantic in his demands on performers, repeatedly using instructions like "espressivo" and "dolce" in his scores.

Compositional Technique

In Ligeti's Violin Concerto, wind players are required to play not only their own instruments but also the ocarina, a ceramic flute from South America that takes weeks to play in tune.

Compositional Technique

Ligeti's scores demand extreme precision in dynamics, with entries often needing to be imperceptible and without attack, in either extremely low or high registers.

Compositional Technique

Some of Ligeti's instrumental innovations were groundbreaking, but some, like a four-measure cluster for four trombones in their lowest register in Atmosphères, remain impossible to perform as required.