Seminar on György Ligeti – Pierre-Laurent Aimard at University of Chicago

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good evening ladies and gentlemen and thoughts else rather than to speak up pieces it could be interesting to speak about the interpretation music and interpretation of his species first of all because this is what I do so I think I'm maybe Italy more able to speak up that and second of all the truth as interpreters we are constantly facing pieces and try to decide what makes sense for us in these pieces and how to make it sensible for other human beings consequently to forge an interpretation of these means to ask constantly what was the identity of the species and which renditions we could have for making this identity catching or servicing of course the focus in terms of their dream has to be negative for obvious reasons because of this marvelous festival I thought that I should use pieces that I will play tomorrow so that the pieces we studied today we beliefs will be listen will be heard completely tomorrow I thought that Beethoven should not be out of our game today it's a master program in order also to caps why Beethoven and rickety and a totally should extend the revelatory to other compositions to understand better maybe how flexible has to be interpreters depending on the that we love face the first piece in tomorrow's program will be a piece of the first haggarium period of dignity called musical Chaotica it was knowledge when having left the tonal logic composers were fascinating by the number 12 for obvious reasons 12 sons at their disposal how to organize them and we get if there ever is a piece with 11 movements while 11 because in fact in each other he starts with one mountain reaches the next one so that with 11 pieces one would reach the twelfth nose that means that each of these pieces tell a different story about adding one note to a composition sometimes on a very discrete Swasey sometimes with a very funny way sometimes on a problematic way in the case of the first piece on a half dramatic half hemostick way the entire piece is the construction of a phenomenal suspense with one knows third phase 1a and finishes as a last note with the second note at D that we have been waiting for for three pages now if the piece starts with a kind of theater show like somebody who loves us pompous gestures consistent process make a little one that will lead from nothing to everything from nothing establishing with one basis of position like a kind of menacing makeup so if I speak about interpretation I can say about the first gesture to little means that there is no humor no more desk would be extremely serious and too much of course is too much better so I think interpretation like judgment is the right balance between parameters and later on the d-list of course to pronounce a sound that express a palace so not a dead sound like fun but the Sun which leads forward and some where invite the listener to catch the time-dimension one and then to connect the nodes in timing in order to organize the 10 and then to be extremely consequence in the relation of time between the notes [Music] because if you start here to be a little lazy impulse control in that's thoughts is not completely regular nobody believes to this deadly like mechanism now as there are two hands in the piano there is one part of Ernestine Otto and one of the one for changing areas these changing elements work with one know what can one do with one note whether to repeat and this is what we can make the right hand adding silence to create words and then sentences so at the start three of them I think it is Hungarian and this is a language that doesn't seem much I mean - vocals are very varied but it is an extremely articulated language it's very pulse it rhythmical and the conscience played a major role this is what we find here three notes three pockets accent so three ways really to articulate this object when we add them a development to this first cell with a very Hungarian one the famous pop pop and rhythm with Trudy Perl notes as if we make the foot then it is also very characterized in terms of articulation means if here in the interpretation we don't focus on this articulation music has no character and no sense at all we see if we play a special attic Italian music then we should concentrate on vocals and not better come to Philly Hungary music we should concentrate on articulation and not what he'll do the composer is such a simple basic material if he wants to vary his music he can use the logistics for instance he can make small things as but we have but changing the register of course if in the perception we want to listen to a melody travelling between registers the interpreter has to pay attention to leave this movie both registers like another later dimension and we would lose completely obviously later on even to play with registers with the entire object it's not only inside the object of note but from its memory so here also of course we want to give it a reddish tradition of this very special order sometime somewhere we have to follow this order and to make very clear to the perception that at this moment he developed the piece by starting to work with register etc and then he will do like Beethoven or high or Beethoven and there when he will make wants to make more drama he will reduce his theme repeated but we use it so instead [Music] so he takes the scissors and he takes a seller off to the cell at the answer at this moment of course we should keep in mind as interpreters and I think there are interpreters here therefore and also I speak only always on two levels to keep this addition of small cells without adding all the time this small elements what is much more energy of course keep articulation and tempo and not have a global Lady of global perception organism so this would be the focus for this very special developments that leads to a moment of complete craziness very integrated craziness but extreme craziness nodes have not been into the registers wiggity and achieves the complete the complete register that after having created a maxilla and only temple doable by an action under in the form by this process of cutting his thin little vanity concentrate again only on the single note on the start repeat it but we don't with my collection [Music] it was kind of very strong massive sounds very well very new somewhere because even Rachmaninoff parsley I mean when they repeat calls don't make it on such radical and extreme way and then after this gesture that somewhere romantic the gesture of the very start and is at the border of the ridiculous we don't know exactly which category young then he creates the absolute surprise with a single new no alone in the middle almost naked so we see this piece comes he needed rains extremes extremely little in the material extremely much in the gesture the development and the use of registers he integrates also extremes in terms of cocktails combining for instance tragical and ridiculous and somewhere the piece can have its strengths when with so little material it contents in the presentation of the interpretation the combination of his extraneous it's just not good number seven so we have seven plus one knows of course and here the project seems to be true Siebel it's a [Music] or the melody would sound like that if Li if he had written simply a transcription of a Hungarian also but of course he's interested with other dimensions more than what Bartok has already done so their confidence is totally but if there are five notes how many there are seven notes rhythmically soon ostinato and this often a twenty-seven is a dry dusty matter but quite fast so that we are not sure what the best section that we have is it's a rhythm in seven but it's very fast or is it a kind of slow very dry texture like what he will compose systematically in the 60s but he will find his most original stuff we are probably at the border between home and this is what makes one of the level of richness of this music so willing to be interpreted the question would be what is the right staccato and the right tempo so that we give to the listener a perception of ambiguity between these two categories it was complementarity about ambiguity between parameters like this or generation life because unlike less a people who separated the parameters and of course created sometimes continuity between them especially in the electronic music I think two pieces like contact my stalker among others and in this case we have been and might have been an instrumental example of that with the spirit now the melody is childhood melody that Canadians use of me starts in three so three against seven that's already not bad but what's much better is that they are not synchronized means the seven is going means at its own speed and the three is quite free by the way with their mothers but another time [Music] Tamia this ostinato against devour respeaking the relative minute we have seven minutes the three so that we can't establish a rhythmic enforcement's but we have also no synchronization at all and we have also and a component HEVC more like at a distance a song solo much closer and then expresses Lagarto so Lucic to choose in two different spaces but never connect with each other actually the ostinato remains are the same result the melody that will be presented with one signal insurance travel insurance or with the limitation economy a double cannon later and then with games of registers melody is her always with different dynamics what keeps impression that it is her different distances it could be a space distance it could be a distance in the memory what is really activate in the case of a childhood melody so in terms of interpretation the deal would be how can we have having learn to synchronize hands hands completely visa commands but also in different worlds with what farming knows less and singing an expressive way and the other one remaining extremely mechanical or maybe not so much maybe want to decide through have it not completely mechanical I played with a parallel organ but a little conceited and danced like it's up to everybody so again I think dealing with an intimidation is dealing with a sense of the peeps and controlling constantly the balance of parameters so that to close that the perception by the listener will give the most respectful identity [Music] [Music] now recycle has been composed during the study years in Budapest where new music was strictly forbidden and work moves us for well modernists for not getting going to jail should hide their world and therefore musical a Chiquita we made the manuscript for years and years as did not published and has begun to start from yet for the group of three friends and the composers one in his middle period he didn't use much they are no heart in a brilliant cycling for two channels I prefer miss Esther masterpiece good movement says Oakland they go but they're in his third theater in the 80s when the age of post-modernism when most of the computers adapt their style to a changing world there he composed a separate gentle youtube channel the video that we listen to as well that means that the use of the instrument channel responded very much to his new installations and I will play now if examples from five of his issues at people after the concert tomorrow and that showed a panel of his composition and these first ones called on her luck in fact this Auto luck is not an ontological phase both of bells twist on the beach there are two birds one in each hand one with each other with different [Music] like always with 2008 like always with stupid fascinating for a ready now in order to give rich an interesting result his principal Ligety adds layers of balance and each of them will be heard at different speeds [Music] and I did a start of the piece the study here clearly two bells and three and then little by little we can't follow the poly rhythms of the polyphony and we have the feeling of a forest of bells and little by little where the complexity is larger then we lose a little in my opinion the perception of the first polyrhythm and we had a kind of statistic music extremely organized or what he calls himself a love men organized [Music] [Music] Irish layers we are seeing the true blocks of layers one bare hands go in different directions so that what are the feeling that this activity is little by little you see it's stretched so to see now plastic interpretation and why I am interesting because it's the way to ask ourselves what we do think of the piece I don't ask ourself what do you how we think the best section of it is food world the goal is to have these layers as clear as possible like in any pollutant so in each hand the goal is to give to each of the bells a different tsunami two different way let's say for instance for a very slow film in a larger sound more ways you can say shoot away [Music] then for the nextel that was little faster would have a thinner sound and this is what hospital Boozer made Saffiano instead of mental forty we would have a way lexicon the arm or from the wrist and then the next bell that is even would have the weight only from the finger so the goal is really strong characterization of the sounds in order to clarify the tissue of bells and then to understand better the polyrhythm now when you have certainly noticed that every hands place with a difference block of notes of scale of neurons the left hand plays the following notes and the right hand with white jeans every combination of both scales gives to the composition in this shop so that later on when instead of stretching both layers he will bring them together then we will not have the combination of scales feel here clearly defined like passage that I've played where we hear distinctively lands of the base that but he braced it hands together across them will have a much thicker combination of both scales with sometimes we have accents one of the levels that comes to our convention anymore [Music] so sometimes as I say but yes we recognize that was he the atomic world of the right hand and when we have the left-hander we recognize the quasi mortal world of the left hand now for later of course we'll have to focus very much on the perception of this double identity otherwise the accent could be played could be a kind of harmonic nonsense again the bad example of this harmonic nonsense [Music] just play keep more pressure but I don't control with my dear the identity of this scale is time to dynamic scale or this modern scale now on the contrary I try to play black sense so that each time we recognize the identity of each later [Music] so in fact playing the music I think like listening to music is always to try to understand where is the peace where is its identity where is the sense of it and where is is subject second achievements Cotton's for the very simple idea the empty strings of stringed instruments as if we had a huge instrument covering all registers from them by led to the double bars or October's I mean as if we would travel into this empty street this is another and tradition this obsession good obsession for the fifth selling structures of only a lot of the enduring music and before [Music] now you notice that when we just travels through this [Music] support these things and make an augmentation chromatic augmentation [Music] logic and this nous sommes combined with the pure fixed Sun will give new intervals and new encounters they visited following the way how it has been proposed new swing is to play with this intervals alternately link together all these things or worked by the composer discovery [Music] doing - playing his channels and if the proposal is designing the space of city he's travelling through the space in any direction so that pulling these things of things consists to describe open and almost pennant a space [Music] so that's one of the elements of the acoustical life of this piece of its interpretation it's to open this space [Music] next artistically all the notes you construct a space on the contrary if you play the notes independently if there are we're not bad mad mystically as there should be some poor let the music totally this feeling of states it doesn't have this global image I give this counter example that example [Music] Joseph Laden work independently they don't connect together and we don't have anymore this globally they are mostly rhythmical studies in the next one is very little in this case he creates rhythmical patterns adding some very simple service of one note the way to automate or permitting these cells gives as a result an original rhythm like this one it's like a TV and explaining ostinato now as janice experience you can use the same procedure but with another combination with the other hands so that at the ends the timing of one of the ostinatos [Music] well the ostinato of the left hand is shorter than this one under right and sequin tree even if one repeats the same ostinato the general result the combination 2 polyrhythm is always different and always new so let's hear how it creates an interesting general algorithm of the stuff I will accentuate a little bit the start of each ostinato so that we listen how each hand are shifted and that more and more as far as we go into now the entire piece is a game where this principle this principle comes from the music of central Africa but is intubated validity of course it's not pure imitation and let his double ostinato run but then this is night of big architects and interrupt the process sometimes and translates the entire thing in another register so he has energy but he works against his logic at the same time and we will very clearly here and observe these changes unexpected sudden changes in the [Music] [Music] now it's a very little pulsating music so we may be kind of model very regular modeling but it's not a mechanical music [Music] elastic rhythm that we dance let's say human rhythm and this is not an African music this is a music of the library which speaks is very special music so articulate so each other small cell should be saved and comprehensible for its own sake [Music] think it otherwise [Music] that loses its character its identity and it's not and of course it's also again with melody writes very carefully like a very fast man's with melodies with very simple basic material like always if not seen for music of each other hard material is very simple this makes the comprehension this music so easy so they'll protect various all the time safely for the harmony fifth harmony the heaven keeps most of the climate consequently the back to her one note open field and differently combined field gives little by little a very rich range of colors as what we have observed with the pages achieved here also if we don't take care about the harmony [Music] we lose a dimension in the composition before the contrary which wire to give an excellent rendition of each combination of these physics that gives and permanently variant which polycomb mean so to say that the pieces obviously must feature [Music] [Applause] [Music] so somewhere to make the rights enter it a bit interpretations choices consist to try to see what happened the the key choices the key decisions of the composer and to decide how to make a message the next change is going to Spokane again with a very simple chromatic virtual zoo turning movement [Music] [Music] but now the gang man Ligety uses extra to discover my music inventor so to see the factory blow some peace in order to modify the person interior [Music] now I'll play exactly the same thing as before just with block business now what's interesting of course is to understand what to meet there see exactly at this moment so he asks a possibility but also what is almost contradictory simply means so fast it would begin not the seats blank irritability he wants is simply want to integrate and means that what interests me is the result of this debate you learn almost unexpected rhythm created by [Music] so I gave you plates with a big busy place with the borders of visa texture notice in the riddle this would be probably in between and this is the game of this peaceful now for because it too simple music is not interesting for the composer who likes rich Ivy's one needs a level of complexity then the remaining fingers in the left hand add a couple of pieces of toast incidentally on the other hand in order to bring in the [Music] if we look at an extremely simple almost stupid design and a very elementary clique in fact the result is incredibly rich and looked for with the most careful craftsmanship in terms of interpretation the question should be how can we get this global perception not as musical activity that doesn't refer to any traditional categories but also to have a perception of this acute though completely symmetrical [Music] so there is a physical difficulty if you press a P there is a certain resistance so a certain effort for if you work if you press a key that is already blocked there is nothing to do so you would then less you use less time and for the other keys so to get the right the same time in both case is really a challenge and funny realistic visited that seems to me of the easiest one is my opinion or the hardest one if once I get the musical result and while I in fact because the situation is unusual so the manual sportif somewhere has to learn other physical movements and year and brain educates the fingers and the last issues is an interesting idea of a few so a complex belief in the frame of a vehicle a change but with as a team elemental that means the most expressive of expressions music of fancy vanity where needed it's the theater [Music] it seems to be too much you know as if we have too much people absolute expression and then the I think the ladies there is this combination of too much expression that brings to a kind of saturation or it would be situation if the lady would not use what mental reversal this generation use that means layers of different time or different speeds yes of course you know that doesn't consider that there is one single time proposals also if not will not complete with one single night consequently when we have it thick polyethylene back in the following passage each of the lungs of late and hopefully her in a difference [Music] [Music] sacred slightly the balance in the first piece but not with expressive lines and here also after the moment when we have too many of these lines we lose the feeling of polyphony and we switch into a kind of whirling global cows now as I see that time is running much faster than I thought I think that will remain in the speculative will remain with tomorrow's economy and much saw also gets Beethoven for obvious reasons many interpretations much more interpretations of paper than them Ligety and we know the piece is very much more so blessed to discover it though that is always to discover in such in fact the question is always a thing not to have in mind what is supposed to be done in terms of interpretation or what is supposed to be the central masterpiece but always to face this masterpiece of the question is to understand better how it is [Music] so this is the way our love may be not true here it's a lot of babies when we have in fact a fascinating rhythmical construction actually not for some purpose some examples there that can take them to the examples of dignity that we have in terms of harmony is one Robertson but characterized this one worse on this mass is the rhythmical work and which we should rhythmical work we start with an upbeat leading to a state the up it is very separated it's in another register and we only once in a note instead of a mass that means it is not [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] or the team assimilated very clear object and copy building we have another of beat not to be one long this time with two notes [Music] the e-flat what is it for rain not in the harmony like for writing and accents but involving never that would be to make before the top rhythm with it right hands the second is the goal so to say the creation of these visibility and they don't make it very clear giving a little cloud drone to each of this different little segments so this Eames thing is a combination or the combination of the composition of this five different functions and manatees connected together and has consequently the normal force [Music] so that's attached this is even those things that one can observe that interpretation starts in my opinion taking the right decisions or keeping to each of the self it's properly in correspondence with what they will then what will be their life in the composition because each of them will be treated developed change to the movements of the four differently according to the moments when they will be use policies the first of each will be used at the start of the bridge of track a block-based the first anything bridge that will lead to the second but now because we are completely uncertain moment yeah modulated suddenly [Music] without the elation as Beethoven doesn't know lucky tear then the upbeat will be presented with different registers different character dynamics articulation [Music] and repeated in order to stretch a big dominant chord in Trenton u-turn anity they are well the pieces hold of such treatments of the cells mothers so to say and under way how they irrigate of different movements in order to create innovative introduced this is characteristic of beta and it seems to me that the first step in an interpretation is to make a choice to present reality at the start and then to make them recognizable in their changes so that at the end that are related in the treatment of these cells happens in the frame of an organic globality that gives rendition to the strength of the global architecture of the I will end with the short to the second [Music] what happens in your G major war but then into the second bar b2 introduces the six as in minus six the again teenager to get minus six so that when you write on the thirteen and fourteen six unknowns both the minor and the major between the dominant there is no disability prevents presence of both minor and nature on the same team and consequently the use of a lot of a small comb at Excel smooth second coping with both of them second part of the theme this time in nature fiction when we think that the thing is solved Nature has won again Beethoven says no matter and beauty so we see that there is here an extreme strength in this kind of pathos almost but this is not an exception in the penis of course this is a compositional process but you can find many moments of the composition especially the slowing movement in its variation at all so the first moment will exit into the bridge I was speaking about earlier you know we have to stop this bridge later on always on the same dominance we are following [Music] and the resolution is both minor and major but they don't rights to access to expensive accents in a state you it open inoculates this minor second agree needs an ambiguity [Music] of course in this passage the deal dispute here this is part of some major minor or is totally true for the second thing so it would be even imaginable to keep the tempo to play on individuals on your away life they lose completely the sentence passage so the there is the objectivity what baby what's Beethoven has written and the game he has played with dysfunction and there's a little solution at whatever discussion for instance small change the display breaks in the tempo because the motif is often repeated even during this running figure on the small karate consultation [Music] because there is an infinity of ways to give expression to a fact to a compositional fact to make it in a way that relates the use of the same word same principle but those are at different moments of his composition I think that if we which would not finish this part of our meeting somewhere I just wanted to show somewhere what is obvious that means dealing with the composition of today or yesterday well a couple of yesterday's ago and it is a beta it's always the same thing this is to describe a reconstitution of what has been the creative process in order to fix it into an object and to read in this object this world of horses try to find a way to make the network these horses present a knife and expressive so that the emotion curves by the recent it's the emotion or else by the interpreter is the emotion given by the richness of the piece and not simply a kind of emotion that would be stuck on a piece or on the routine on a piece and whose variation would be most in the face of the interpreter more than in the salon once of course a major problem in an era of show and relative of the visual this elections of course intended also somewhere to propose a small gardens for the listening of pieces if interpreting interpreting the pieces of a black tea process in distilleries is not a less active assets of course and if we listen to a piece were constantly trying to connect the elements that we perceive in order to make whether to fund the sense of the piece and to reconstitute it's different levels of structure this is what makes this activity I think so isolating and somewhere the game of communication between creator interpreter and listener so constantly renews and so now please do [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] number one is always converted into cold water as the hardest job in - okay sorry increasing - okay the Lydia - towards the end there's a lot more no third block for you here is a tapping sound on the piano and I'm create what you think that that happens plays in your sense of the piece well it's double game I think yes at the end one o'clock small nose so that they are less notes hurt consequently the riddles lose somewhere they are presence that means the parameter riddle disappears little item the texture becomes extremely warm somewhere so that in change its identity changes and the piece that was from the start on quite funny but maybe with discreet smile becomes at the end it's really very good moments of humor in music so serious competition with high in no doubt and Beethoven and the receive so it's always it's also the way to turn the piece at the end - not too serious for somebody who hated to take you too seriously and would take themselves too seriously I've always wondered it's actually because your performances of the ones that I do the best at protecting all the different meters whether you you feel that when you're playing you're imagining one of the meters and then facing the other one against it or whether you're hearing all of them at once or whether you kind of just regular pulse in your head and you allow the training that you put into your hands and arms and fingers to create the different gradations of volume that create a part in on some pieces that can come a concept for instance when he has a single player he uses one metal solubilities a piece you can't dictate for instance and you have one tempo and then in each of the layers that is supposed to introduce new vertical speed he writes a different rhythm so in fact you come and take five three seven so that at the end and the muscles learn this so - but you should have like with any good skis of any another controller ignoring the first one is to conduct I think and controls the global or the rhythms that means the natural flow of each line that it sounds not and so that also the relation between them and the global fluidity is okay so there are different levels of controls as well as there are different levels of commitments but which you have the very clear the control of some types of control then you have some of the inputs like energy now this is the moment for the spring so you need more energy so you deal with your energy with all the energy emotions as well and you combine these differences dimension that we killed but you control them at the end on the global way in order in order to give the good global conditions but it's a vessel in which instead in fact like in any complex music but maybe most them in any other because he pushed the schizophrenia [Music] I see two levels of energy the first one is to look for the truth I can say what this music means want me to compose a highly minds and there well if you know to compose early to be plus otherwise well there are musical logical ways and intuition is always a mix now at a certain moment you could say now I have a relatively clear image of this piece and what I intend that's level one level two is to get that because in order to get that you can choose tempos a balance between objectivity and the most melodious at hallway but you don't get it all the time because your guitar moves because your little neck mistakes and I prepare section of your explanation of your attendees will change in acoustics what is so important because if you don't know the hall where you play how can you judge or the relatives either separately you have to know or whether even read it will be definitely impossible and this comes very much for especially articulation and 10v and often what seems to be very Tempe home will be a baton P in the next one as well as it could be about ten people Michael rayji license certificate example you played very much all night the problems not in greater a new piston ride out of that whole huge hole you have to over over project is always too much because I think that the risk is life without risk is not aligned the problem of course is the balance of risk and we know that look societies that overprotective and of children other protections don't have good developments in life and speak to artists to economists to politicians to any people to keep the best of yourself is always to know how to balance this isn't it so I think that's an artistic life is interesting in terms of artistic development and what it can bring to your life in what art can bring to your life that means it's a permanent it will permanently opening the experiences and among them the experiences of the pear tree this is also of course very enriching it crews the styles and the a book and Lichtenberg each other and at the Emmys it's also I think important because other as an interpreter ability you've gotta be civil person in the society so you work on communication and if it's temporary you can also extend the communication yes the question was clearly at in the early stage shall there be simply specialist for mr. bighetti and there would be there clearly where I am first of all he didn't correspond to my inner wishes because I've always lived with many music that I needed to live with second of all I thought if I wanted a beautiful cake for them would be much better one if I play over so pay to him and maybe not as good as they are music but however no hopefully not that Beethoven but it could be many many others sanity helps also to connect to to my colleagues I mean you are but when we believe you much more he fancies that you don't to the works reject Beethoven and the others but also try really to understand it and live and share it with the rest of the society is my fault

Channel: Pierre-Laurent Aimard

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Id: R6EQJhmBH-Q

Length: 79min 7sec (4747 seconds)

Published: Fri May 11 2018