Spectra Ensemble & Maran Porat (piano): 'Utopia'

IN SEARCH OF MUSICAL UTOPIAS

György Ligeti described himself as “a blind man searching in a labyrinth”. The Hungarian’s brilliant piano concerto is the result of that long quest in which he constantly rethought his music. Influences from African and Asian percussion, American jazz and European folklore merge with his typical sound clouds and cross-rhythms into ‘imaginary, synthetic world music’.

The Spectra Ensemble has put Ligeti on the programme with two equally undogmatic composers. In Bouchara, Claude Vivier invented a new, hitherto inexistent ‘language of love’. Karel Goeyvaerts, the greatest Belgian composer of the 20th century, wrote Zum Wassermann in the run-up to his masterpiece Aquarius.

For the piano parts, Spectra has invited the gifted Israeli pianist and composer Matan Porat.