[147.1] LIGETI AT HIS BEYST

'Adventures: Ode to the discrepancy between word and deed' is writer and critic Stefan Beyst's evaluation of one of the generally underestimated mini-landmarks of contemporary music. He writes (in translation):

"Ever since -- [some] forty years ago -- I heard them for the first time, they have had me in their grip: [Gyorgy] Ligeti’s 'Aventures'. And they [have not lost that] grip after all [these] years. [Q]uite the contrary. The same goes for two other works .. from 1962: ‘Atmosphères’ and ‘Volumina’. In this essay, however, I .. confine myself to the unparalleled ‘Aventures’ .. [I]n my view – perhaps apart from Alban Berg’s 'Wozzeck' – [this is] the only great .. negative ‘opera’ of the twentieth century. For, even [though] the work, in the best tradition of Webern’s ‘Bagatelles’, .. lasts for a mere eleven minutes, there is a [great deal to say] about it. Not .. least [that] it is governed by the discrepancy between word and deed... the Freudian lapse..."

The text can be a little tricky to follow, but it is full of insight and allusion.