Gyorgy Ligeti Edition Vol 8 - Le Grand Macabre
Our Price: $41.11
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
CD Details
Performer: Gyorgy LigetiComposer: Gyorgy Ligeti
Orchestra: Gyorgy Ligeti
Performer: Frode Olsen
Conductor: Frode Olsen
Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen
Performer: Esa-Pekka Salonen
Performer: Derek Lee Ragin
Performer: London Sinfonietta Voices
Performer: Charlotte Hellekant
Performer: Jard Van Nes
Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus
Performer: Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus
Performer: Laura Claycomb
Performer: Sibylle Ehlert
Performer: Graham Clark
Performer: Steven Cole
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1999-03-23
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Car Horn Prelude / Autohupen-Vorspiel Pr?lude aux klaxons
- Scene 1: "Dies irae"
- Scene 1: "Away, you swagpot!"
- Scene 1: "Shut up!"
- Scene 1: "Oh ...!" - "Amanda! Can do no more!"
- Scene 1: "Ha-ha-ha-ha! Hey! Give me my requisites"
- Scene 1: "Melting snow is thy breast"
- Second Car Hor Prelude / Zweites Autohupen-Vorspiel / Deuxi?me pr?lude aux klaxons
- Scene 2: "One! Two! Three! Five!"
- Scene 2: "Shapley and attractive figure"
- Scene 2: "Venus! Venus!"
- Scene 2: "Stop!" -"Sh! ... Quiet, for heaven's sake!"
- Scene 2: "Who's there? A man?" - "A man!"
- Finale: "Fire and death I bring"
- Scene 3.: Doorbell Prelude
- Scene 3.: "Arse- licker, arse- kisser!"
- Scene 3.: "Posture exercises!"
- Scene 3.: "Tsk..." - "Psssst!"
- Scene 3.: "Ahh! ... Secret cypher!"
- Scene 3.: "Hurray, hurray! My wife is dead"
- Scene 3.: Nekrotzar's Entrance
- Scene 3.: "Woe! Ooh!" - "For the day of wrath"
- Scene 3.: "There's no need to fear"
- Scene 3.: "Up!"- "Drink!" - "Up!"
- Scene 3.: "Hmm! it's delicious!"
- Scene 3.: "Where am I? What time is it?"
- Scene 3.: Interlude
- Scene 4.: "Ghost Astradamors, are you dead?"
- Scene 4. Finale.: "Ah, it was good"
Music reviews of Gyorgy Ligeti Edition Vol 8 - Le Grand Macabre
Music Review: Good opera, probably not destined for classic status
Rating: 4 Stars
Though I haven't heard the German-language recording (the original libretto is in German), I have to believe that, in a language in which the listener lacks fluency, the immediacy of the text's impact would be lost. That's a serious loss when one is dealing (as here) with music that exists largely to amplify a text: rather like the acting in a silent movie (or--perhaps a more appropriate comparison here--the action in a Punch-and-Judy show). This English-language recording I therefore found very welcome.
No recording of course can give one a feel for the bizarre stage sets that (I have to think) must be essential to the impact of this opera in a live performance.
Relatively new though this opera is, to me it already seems somewhat dated, heavily redolent of the early 1970s. It also reminds one of Thornton Wilder's THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, in that, after showing our Cosmic Problems, it facilely solves them by telling us (sort of) that Love Conquers All.
It IS refreshing to find such a broadly-targeted satire not unloading principally on the United States. Instead, there's a good deal of comic (and pretty funny) business about the follies of parliamentary government.
Description of Gyorgy Ligeti Edition Vol 8 - Le Grand Macabre
It's apocalypse now in Hungarian composer Gy?rgy Ligeti's brilliantly imaginative opera about a comic-book Armageddon. Ligeti revised and tightened the original 1970s version of this masterpiece, which boils over with Brechtian grotesques. Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, always sensitive to the pulse of the most compelling contemporary music, brings off a wacky, threatening, sardonic, and exhilarating account. --Thomas MayIt seems oddly fitting that 1999--a year marked by Y2K paranoia and doom-and-gloom trainspotters--is the year in which Sony chose to release this brilliantly charged version of Gy?rgy Ligeti's Le Grande Macabre, the Hungarian master's comic tale of apocalypse and "what me worry?" Originally composed between 1975 and 1977, Macabre follows the various bumbling citizens of "Breughelland" during "anytime." Problem is, their time is about to end, thanks to grim reaper Nekrotzar (played with deadpan grotesquerie by bass-baritone Willard White), who, aided by his bumbling servant Piet the Pot, has decided to lay waste to the world. Of course, nothing ever goes quite right. A pair of indistinguishable lovers (including the radiant mezzo of Charlotte Hellekant) sleeps right through the Armageddon, and the Great Macabre is reduced to asking himself, "Have I not just laid to waste the entire goddamned world?" in the hilarious final scene. Esa-Pekka Salonen's live recording zeroes in on the score's sardonic humor as well as its postmodern raidings. Compared to the first Macabre on disc--sung in German and not as compact as the revised, English version that Ligeti prepared for the 1997 Salzburg Festival revival--this one is the keeper, with better sound staging, wildly imaginative orchestrations, lucid program notes, and an enjoyably perky English rendition of the original text. Hearing all this perfect craziness--the townspeople mimicking a skipping record as they sing "Our Great Leader" in the third scene, the car horn prelude that leads off the production, the absurdist arguments of the Black and White Ministers--is a comic delight. Here is one of Ligeti's masterpieces--a must for fans of modern opera--in its full glory. --Jason Verlinde
General CDs
Music Genres
Bestsellers in General CDs
Puccini - La Boheme (The Metropolitan Opera HD Live Series)Release date: 2008-09-16; DVD
Best price: $13.67
Price in other shops:
Songs of Joy & Peace Deluxe VersionRelease date: 2008-10-14; Music CD
Best price: $13.50
Price in other shops:
Stephen Sondheim - The Story So Far..Release date: 2008-09-30; Music CD
Best price: $34.13
Price in other shops:
Chant: Music For The SoulRelease date: 2008-07-01; Music CD
Best price: $9.66
Price in other shops:
Andrea Bocelli - The Best of Andrea Bocelli: VivereBOCELLI,ANDREA; Release date: 2007-10-30; Music CD
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
Adams: Doctor AtomicRelease date: 2008-09-30; DVD
Best price: $29.88
Price in other shops:
Baby Einstein - Baby Mozart - Music Festivalby Disney
BABY EINSTEIN; Release date: 2002-03-12; Published: 2004; DVD
Best price: $8.88
Price in other shops:
Andre Rieu: Live in ViennaRelease date: 2008-09-30; DVD
Best price: $12.38
Price in other shops:
Vivaldi: The Four SeasonsRelease date: 2008-09-02; Music CD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Songs of Joy & PeaceRelease date: 2008-10-14; Music CD
Best price: $9.98
Price in other shops:
Similar CDs
Gy?rgy Ligeti Edition 7: Chamber Music (Trio for Violin, Horn & Piano; Ten Pieces; Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet; Sonata for Solo Viola) - Saschko Gawriloff / Marie-Luise Neunecker / Pierre-Laurent Aimard / London Winds / Tabea ZimmermannRelease date: 1998-01-20; Music CD
Best price: $34.99
The Ligeti Project IV: Hamburg Concerto (Horn Concerto) / Double Concerto / Ramifications / RequiemRelease date: 2003-05-20; Music CD
Best price: $9.49
Price in other shops:
The Ligeti Project III: Cello Concerto / Clocks & Clouds / Violin Concerto / S?ppal, Dobbal, N?diheged?velRelease date: 2003-01-28; Music CD
Best price: $11.07
Price in other shops:
Reinbert De Leeuw, Schonberg Ensemble - The Ligeti Project I: Melodien / Chamber Concerto / Piano Concerto / Mysteries of the Macabre - Sch?nberg Ensemble / ASKO Ensemble / Reinbert de LeeuwRelease date: 2001-06-19; Music CD
Best price: $9.58
Price in other shops:
Gy?rgy Ligeti Edition 2: A Cappella Choral Works - London Sinfonietta VoicesRelease date: 1997-01-21; Music CD
Best price: $6.72
Price in other shops:
Gy?rgy Ligeti Edition 1: String Quartets and Duets - Arditti String QuartetRelease date: 1997-01-21; Music CD
Best price: $6.32
Price in other shops:
Ligeti: Mechanical MusicRelease date: 1997-05-20; Music CD
Best price: $7.17
Price in other shops:
Gy?rgy Ligeti Edition 6: Keyboard Works (Piano, Harpsichord, Organ) - Irina Kataeva / Pierre-Laurent Aimard / Elisabeth Chojnacka / Zsigmond Szathm?ryRelease date: 1997-05-20; Music CD
Best price: $7.43
Price in other shops:
Gy?rgy Ligeti Edition 3: Works for Piano (Etudes, Musica Ricercata) - Pierre-Laurent AimardRelease date: 1997-01-21; Music CD
Best price: $6.66
Price in other shops:
Gy?rgy Ligeti Edition 4: Vocal Works (Madrigals, Mysteries, Aventures, Songs) - The King's Singers / Philharmonia Orchestra / Esa-Pekka SalonenRelease date: 1997-01-21; Music CD
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops: