BaL 6.01.18 - Ligeti recordings

[ahinton]

Yesterday I listened through the Ullén set. I think the problem I have with these etudes is similar to the problem I have with almost every set of piano etudes I can think of: after a few precisely-imagined studies whose "topic" is clear and well-defined, a certain sameness sets in, as if there's some kind of compulsion (or commission!) to continue the series beyond the sense of necessity with which it kicked off.

It's interesting that you should say this. Marc-André Hamelin made a similar observation about Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies for piano (none of which he has yet performed) at the time when he was working on a handwritten edition of the first 18 of them in the days before music setting software became what it's now become; however, whilst I could see his point (along the lines that Sorabji had set himself the task of writing a cycle of 100 studies so that's what he felt he had to do), I have to say that, listening to Ullén's recordings of the first 83 of them (five CDs, with two more to come to include the final 16), any such impression disappears (for me, at least). These studies have all been edited/typeset some years ago, mainly by Alexander Abercrombie.