Death and delight: Ligeti’s Horn Trio at the QEH
Ligeti’s Horn Trio
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Tamara Stefanovich, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Marie-Louise Neunecker, Daniel Caiampolini
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Stalls F36, £15
11 May 2018
Southbank page
Programme
Ligeti, Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes
Ligeti, 3 Pieces for 2 pianos (Monument, Selbstporträt, Bewegung)
Ligeti, Trio for horn, violin and piano (Hommage à Brahms)
Reich, Clapping Music
Ligeti, Etude No.8 (Fém) arr. for piano and percussion
Nancarrow, Piano Player Study No.4 arr. for 2 pianos
Nancarrow, Piano Player Study No.9 arr. for 2 pianos
Aimard, Improvisation for 4 hands on Ligeti's Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes
Aimard, Improvisation for piano and percussion on Ligeti's Etude No.4 (Fanfares)
I’ve never seen Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes before and I reel from the brilliance of the idea. With such efficiency of means Ligeti constructs something that is visually beautiful to behold, as the waving metal arms glint in the stagelights; that is powerfully evocative of ancient memories, from the specificity of the sound of heavy rain against the flat roof of our conservatory in my childhood home, to the presumably more general of a dictatorial metronome reducing me to tears in a battle with Chopin and disobedient fingers; that has the sheer rhythmic overwhelming joy of a Reich mega-piece; that has an unflinching softness, a calm encapsulation of the limited span of human life, interpretable as either a bleak futility or a gentle inevitability. What a piece.
Nor had I ever seen live Ligeti’s Horn Trio, a similarly amazing piece in importantly different ways, most significantly in the brutal onus it places on the performers. I’m not sure the piece could have been performed better than by this combination of Aimard, Kopatchinskaja and Neunecker, each phenomenal interpreters, each engaging as equals with this music that seeks to ravage and rage. Where I found ambiguity in Poeme symphonique, cast between sorrow and acceptance, there is none in the Trio, moving from unfettered wildness to a howl of desolation and agony in its final movement. What a piece.
What could match such a first half? Ingeniously Aimard responds with joy and delight, reminding us that love of exploration, ever-seeking curiosity, play and wit and joy are as much a part of Ligeti’s music as its despair at the world’s troubles. Structured in one continuous movement Aimard took us from the loose-hanging wit of Clapping Music through the bonkers perpetuum mobile of Nancarrow’s player pianos and into a deeply affectionate, delightful improvisatory response with percussionist Ciampolini. A joy to behold and a wonderful homage.
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