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Awarded the quarterly German Record Critics' Award, this disc brings the chamber music from the period between 1968 and 1982, which reveals Ligeti's development that is particularly impressive with the old-fashioned harpsichord and the Continuum entrusted to it. The piece has an unreal opalescence, literally whirring and flickering. Sheets of sound transform threateningly - quite unlike the more grounded, Hungarian-tinged pieces. The works for piano duo suddenly present a standard theme of painting as a musical subject: the self-portrait! The full title of the composition translates as "Self-portrait with Reich and Riley (and Chopin is in there too)." Ligeti does not deny the irony here. In his Trio, obstinately enough, he does not assemble a classical set of instruments but instead includes representatives of different "families," juxtaposed more or less irreconcilably: violin, horn, and piano.

Wergo 60100


Part 1
Part 2
Part 3