Steph Power is entranced by all manner of dazzling soundworlds as she explores the best recordings of Ligeti\u2019s Violin Concerto, a 20th-century virtuoso showstopper <\/p>
Gy\u00f6rgy Ligeti\u2019s wild, radiantly paradoxical Violin Concerto has captured the imagination like few other modernist works of the last 30 \u2013 even 50 \u2013 years. The piece was composed between 1989 and \u201993 for the German violinist Saschko Gawriloff. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Initially in three movements, it was premiered in that form by Gawriloff and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra under conductor Gary Bertini in 1990. Ligeti<\/a> <\/strong>then revised the first movement and added a further two \u2013 a version premiered by Gawriloff in 1992 with Ensemble Modern, conducted by Peter E\u00f6tv\u00f6s. Subsequent re-orchestration of the third and fourth movements produced the definitive, five-movement work heard today.<\/span><\/p>\n The rigorous composition process was characteristic of Ligeti. In the 1990 programme booklet he wrote: \u2018I compose very slowly, destroying ten or 20 attempts before attaining the final score \u2026 the creation of art is not an everyday task and I must achieve, without compromise, the end result which is my imagined ideal.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\nA guide to the music of Ligeti\u2019s Violin Concerto<\/h2>\n