Szymanowski, Ligeti, Ives & Wirth: Études & Studies

Featuring

Stefan Wirth
Karol Szymanowski
György Ligeti
Charles Ives

Did you know?

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Compositional Technique

Ligeti's etude "À bout de souffle" is a two-part work where both hands play the same music, but staggered by an eighth note, creating a new musical texture from a traditional canon form.

Composer's Artistic Vision

The etude, unlike other musical genres, is centered on the performer's body, with its musical content consisting of the technical exercise itself.

Composer's Artistic Vision

György Ligeti, an influential musical 'lateral thinker,' combined diverse influences like Balkan folk music, player piano studies by Conlon Nancarrow, African music, Chopin, Godowsky, and Bill Evans in his etudes.

Performer Biography

Stefan Wirth, the pianist on this recording, is a member of the Gershwin Piano Quartet, which performs at major festivals like the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival and the Rheingau Music Festival.

Compositional Technique

Karol Szymanowski's 12 Etudes, Op. 33, feature a four-note figure that spans the entire piano range, creating harmonies that blend tonal, polytonal, and atonal structures.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Stefan Wirth, the pianist and composer on this album, created his own etudes as a 'laboratory' to challenge himself, writing pieces he initially couldn't play and then learning them through practice.

Composer Biography

Charles Ives, the composer of several 'Studies' on this album, was an outstanding baseball player in college and captained the Yale team to victory against Harvard.