György Ligeti remains most well known for the shimmering textural density of pieces like Atmospheres and Lux Aeterna, music endeared him to Stanley Kubrick which lent further confusing menace to his most terrifying films. His two string quartets are less well known but equally compelling, in entirely different ways. His first quartet was written before his emigration from Hungary, and due to Stalinist oppression destined only for “the desk drawer”, and finds him building on the angular folk forms of Bartok’s later quartets, which he knew only by score. Ligeti stretches Bartok’s ideas in more coldly aggressive directions, losing melodic traces in aimless cul-de-sacs, crisscrossing others with independent exercises, whilst remaining jaunty and captivating.
It’s his second however that really commands attention. One of Ligeti’s own favourite works, the second quartet explores the vast dynamic shifts of Webern within a jittery, paranoid arrangement. At times rivalling Xenakis in terms of sheer visceral intensity, the closure created in the final movement is particularly unnerving. Also included here is the rarely heard early work Andante and Allegro, recalling a tame Brahms, a romantic sketch fit more for your timid Mum’s ears.
Joshua Meggitt
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