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2 September 2003
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'en sourdine'
Venues Ligeti (born 1923)- Concerto for violin and orchestra
(1989–92) Bruckner
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Ligeti has been generous in giving instrumental players concertos, within BBC Proms
About the and apart from his Concerto romanesque (1951) and Chamber Events by the week
Festival Concerto (1969–70), which are orchestral concertos, he has, so far, Listen Online
written five: the Cello Concerto (1966); the Double Concerto for Beginners Guide
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Music flute, oboe and orchestra (1972); the Piano Concerto (1985–8); the elsewhere on BBCi
Violin Concerto (1989–92); and the Hamburg Concerto for horn and Composer Profiles
Proms in the
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Park chamber orchestra (1999–2002). Music
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The Violin Concerto was written for Saschko Gawriloff, who had
played the very demanding violin part in Ligeti’s Horn Trio (1982).
The Horn Trio was a key work in Ligeti’s development: it renewed a
sense of tradition, and had a formal grandeur as well as an
About the BBC expressive depth which spelt out ‘Classic’. Ligeti had dropped
anchor. Or had he? For he had by no means closed his mind to new
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and not-so-new influences from near and far, nor given up technical
innovations: on the one hand, in rhythm and counterpoint –
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explored rigorously in on-going series of piano Etudes – and, on the
other, in tuning and harmony.
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The player-piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow 1912–97), with their
crazy contrapuntal complications, the musics of the Far East, Africa,
and Latin America, the pioneering work of Harry Partch (1901–76)
and his ‘home-made’ instruments, the weird, quasi-exotic
incantations of Claude Vivier (1948–83) – all these have been grist
to Ligeti’s mill.

Behind his researches, if that isn’t too clinical word, lies a

dissatisfaction with the limitations of established systems, such as
the tempered scale, as well as a willingness to take into account,
and even embrace, chaos – Ligeti’s first Etude for piano is called
‘Désordre’!

The orchestra in the Violin Concerto is almost band of soloists, since

the number of string-players requested is very small. Among these,
two individuals are re-tuned (a process called scordatura) to precise
pitches – a violin very slightly higher than normal, viola very slightly
lower – in order to produce new harmonic spectra, and give a
shimmering effect. Two horns and one trombone play natural tones
which are normally ‘corrected’ in conventionallytuned music), and
then there are also parts for ocarinas (played by the oboist,
clarinettists and bassoon-player) and slide-whistles (played by two
percussionists), which give an uncertain pitch, or what Ligeti calls a
‘dirty’ sound.

By contrast, the soloist plays dead in tune! And her part demands
breath-taking skill.

The first movement, ‘Praeludium’, is rather like a warm-up,

emerging from silence; the soloist (playing the eerie spectral sounds
called ‘harmonics’) is shadowed by the scordatura violin and viola in
the orchestra, until she breaks away, with the woodwind, in a
shower of accents. The shape of this preludial movement is like two
hairpins, expanding then contracting, retreating into silence.

The second movement is based on a melody (or, to give it a more

academic name, a cantus firmus) from Ligeti’s third Bagatelle for
wind quintet (1953) – so much for the ‘Aria’ in the title – and
weaves it with counterpoints, and against itself – so much for
‘Hoquetus’ – with interruptions from a choir of ocarinas and slide-
whistles – so much for the ‘Choral’ – while the soloist thrums her
violin like a guitarist.

The third movement follows after a precisely measured rest. Here

the violin ascends into the open air, floating a gentle cantilena
through a drizzle of descending chromatic scales, pianissimo, on the
strings. A crescendo builds up, the woodwind join in, and the music
judders to a stop. It is, perhaps, the simplest movement in its
overall shape, and quite typical of Ligeti.

The fourth movement is also a crescendo arrested suddenly, but

more complex along the way. Its basis is the sinuous semitonal
figure heard at the beginning of the movement and, to simplify, the
music creeps upwards, growing louder and denser, with violent
interjections.

The fifth and final movement is, appropriately, something of a

technical tour de force, in terms of both instrumental and
compositional skill. The ‘theme’ here – close, in some respects, to
motifs heard in the preceding three movements – is a version of the
haunting ‘lament’ which featured so strikingly in the searing final
movement of Ligeti’s Horn Trio: here, it traces the descending steps
of the whole-tone scale. Unusually in a present-day concerto,
although the published score contains a cadenza (co-written by the
composer and Saschko Gawriloff, the work’s dedicatee), Ligeti also
allows the soloist to provide her own, and Tasmin Little will do so
this evening. It can last from one to two minutes, says Ligeti, and
‘should be hectic throughout, but can incorporate melodic material
from all five movements’. ‘Towards the end,’ he adds, ‘the tempo
should be prestissimo with alternating arco [bow] and left hand
pizzicato in mad virtuosity.’ The orchestra interrupts rudely with a
few deflationary exclamations, and, with a last gasp from two flutes,
the Concerto ends.

Ligeti’s Violin Concerto was first performed (in November 1990) in a

provisional form of three movements, as a work-in-progress. The
complete five-movement version was first performed two years
 later.

Programme note © Adrian Jack, 2003

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