Under principal conductor Yuval Weinberg, the SWR Vokalensemble has recorded György Ligeti's a cappella works on two CDs.
Apart from the LatinLux aeterna (1966) and the Three Fantasies after Friedrich Hölderlin (1982),
György Ligeti has set exclusively Hungarian poetry to music for his a
cappella works, preferring texts by the poets Bálint Balassa (1554-1594)
and Sándor Weöres (1913-1989). In addition to the programmatic
realisation of textual content, he is primarily interested in the
special phonetic sequences, rhythms, intonations and accents of the
Hungarian language, resulting in music that is richly coloured,
rhythmically concise and expressively significant.
The SWR
Vokalensemble will perform Ligeti's vocal works at the Ludwigsburg
Schlossfestspiele (25 May), the Franz Liszt Music Academy Budapest (26
May), the Moers Festival (28 May), the Prague Spring Festival (28 May),
Milano Musica (31 May), the Festival Manifeste Paris (19 June) and the
Musikfest Stuttgart (22 June).
As early as March 21, the school
project will come to a close in Stuttgart: the ARD broadcasting
corporation has called for the nationwide music education project "The
Ligeti Experiment". The SWR Vokalensemble is organising workshops in
which the pupils learn to trust their ears and transform their inner
images and fantasies into a film. As a closing event, there will be two
film premieres, with the Vokalensemble singing new music that paints
vivid pictures.
