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The newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble brought its 16^th season, titled Crossings, to a close with a special tribute concert to the music of György Ligeti. Jan Faidley, President of the newEar Board of Directors, stated in her opening remarks, that to her knowledge, this is the second concert only entirely comprised of music by Ligeti. Artistic Director David McIntire commented in the concert program notes that since composer György Ligeti had died in 2006, newEar has wanted to perform a concert devoted to the breadth of his work.

Through the constant search for new sounds that ultimately distanced him from the doctrines of 20th century musical styles, György Ligeti had a deep impact on modern composers.  After surviving a Nazi labor camp, he fled his native Hungary to escape Soviet-backed ideology, and embraced the post-war avant-garde taking shape in Western Europe. However, Ligeti was soon driven to evade the tenants of the avant-garde and began to carve his own musical direction. As David McIntire pointed out in the program notes, Ligeti said "I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape."

Ligeti could be described as the preeminent composer of conceptual music in the 20th century. Further, his conceptualism was motivated to rebuke the pre-meditated and constructional qualities of other music in his time. He was relentlessly in search of new tonalities. Music was the page on which he wrote, but his words were a language all his own. 

The first piece on the program was one of Ligeti's early compositions, Six Bagatelles for Woodwind Quintet, was completed in 1953 but not performed until 1969 because it was banned by the Hungarian authorities for its decadent use of chromaticism. To our modern ears, the bagatelles are as delightful as Prokofiev and as fervent Stravinsky, and it's difficult to imagine they were once considered dangerous. 

Part I, "Allegro con spirito," was a fast number with a flourishing melody passed around the ensemble contrasted by a steady rhythmic pulse and ending with a humorous single thud, deposited by the bassoon.  An expressive melody was featured in part II, "Rubato. Lamentoso." This movement explored changing musical coloration with subtlety. Part III, "Allegro grazioso," contained a rhythmic descending pattern throughout, underpinning an eloquent melody and countermelodies. 

A loud, majestic, quick and surprisingly short Part IV, "Presto ruvido" followed. Next was the impressionistic "Adagio. Mesto" dedicated in memoriam to Bartók. It began with long sustained pitches on the reed interments offset by long pulsing chords. The piercing dissonance of this movement evoked the relentless desert sun. 

The final movement had a fast chromatic melody that was tossed around between the members of the ensemble and featured a high melody on French horn. To remind us of his uncharacteristic wit, Ligeti ended the bagatelles in the same way as the first movement, with a single mischievous poke from the bassoon. 

Second in the concert was four selections from Études pour piano (1985). This was performed by newEar's regular piano player, Robert Pherigo (who is always masterful) and in this performance he presented a flawless rendering of four of the painstaking piano studies. 

The first selection was "Cordes vides," or "Open Strings." The music seeped in and meandered, uncertain of its tonal center. It then built to a more complex undulation and sounded like a ship being tossed about on a turbulent sea. Robert Pherigo's playing was gentle and firm, deftly executed, and intense.

The second part, "Fém" is translated from the Hungarian as "Metal." The music sounded both irritated and languid, two emotions not expected in piano studies, but such was the nature of the composer. The piece sounded as though it was searching in vain to find a path to resolution that was never discovered. Third was "En suspens," or "Suspension." This piece was both contemplative and whimsical, like the daydreams of a restless youth. It had a certain curiosity and contrasted highs and lows like questions and answers. 

Finally "Fanfares" was a dizzying and highly technical etude. As in other compositions by Ligeti, the music here is playing catch with the melody like an elaborate game of keep-away. In spite of the chaos, a pulse was established, and some heads in the audience began an arrhythmic bobbing.

After the intermission Poéme Symphonique for 100 metronomes (1962) was performed.  In a piano student's nightmare, one hundred metronomes beat away in a cacophonous clicking of random rhythm until it sounded like a light hail storm with gusts of wind. It became more interesting as one-by-one the metronomes stopped, leaving fewer combinations in the ongoing clicking. Finally was down to just one metronome, this work had the endurance of the Energizer Bunny, going and going, until finally it suddenly stopped. 

NewEar made a lottery out of this piece wherein a number was assigned to each metronome and participants guessed which would be the last one clicking. The last metronome was not one assigned a prime number by some inconceivable rule of mathematics, but was instead, simply, #9. 

The final work of the evening was the 1966 chamber version of Ligeti's Cello Concerto. The soloist was Lawrence Figg who has played chamber music in France and has recorded for French radio and television. He was also principal cellist for the Orchestra National Bordeaux Aquitaine and is now a member of the Kansas City Symphony and co-principal cellist with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra.

Figg began the piece. One faint pitch emerged from the cello; this pitch is held for a long time, requiring fluid transition in the bow strokes. Slowly, the strings joined the cello on the single pitch. The timbre of the single sound begins to change subtly. The strings faded out, and the winds joined the cello on the one long holding pitch. There was a delicate blur of semi-tones around the one pitch, and the cello moved a half step, followed by a series of intervals. 

Ligeti was exploring the tiny variances he could produce with an ensemble playing chiefly on one sustained pitch. The cello can produce an array of textures and by playing on the slight edge of the bridge harmonics and variations in timbre produce a sound like resonating glass. There was a long uncomfortable silence in the piece. The ensemble returned and the cello played a melody with expansive intervals. Figg demonstrated great skill in both the long sustained timbral passages and the exact execution of the jumping melodic parts.

This work confused pitch and rhythm so that each was not a single element of the music, but rather the combined groupings of subtly different variations of pitches and rhythms produced the overall affect. The ending passages were so quiet that they were almost inaudible. The cello played out the piece alone on a repeated pattern that faded away as he fingered the notes; and then slowly removed the bow completely so that in the end, he was taping on the neck and the sound faded from a whisper into nothing.

REVIEW:
newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble
Crossings concert 4: The Music of György Ligeti 
Saturday, May 2, 2009
All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church
4501 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO
To learn about newEar and next year's season, visit their website www.newear.org 

By Scott Easterday

New Classical Contributor, VIDs Department Director

Scott Easterday is a musician and singer/songwriter. He writes reviews and performs interviews for KCMetropolis in New Classical and explores new directions in the performing arts.