György Ligeti left two proper string quartets; No. 1, subtitled "Metamorphoses nocturnes," was written in 1953-1954 (a little after the Six Bagatelles for wind quintet), but not heard until 1957 when performed by the Ramor Quartet in Vienna. Ligeti's Quartet No. 1 would sit around another three decades before getting a second hearing, but since then it has been recorded many times and comes close to entering the standard quartet literature. No. 2 is already part of it, a very famous work belonging fully to Ligeti's mature ...
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György Ligeti left two proper string quartets; No. 1, subtitled "Metamorphoses nocturnes," was written in 1953-1954 (a little after the Six Bagatelles for wind quintet), but not heard until 1957 when performed by the Ramor Quartet in Vienna. Ligeti's Quartet No. 1 would sit around another three decades before getting a second hearing, but since then it has been recorded many times and comes close to entering the standard quartet literature. No. 2 is already part of it, a very famous work belonging fully to Ligeti's mature period; it was commissioned by the LaSalle Quartet and first heard in Baden-Baden in 1969. The folksy, almost romantic Andante and Allegretto, elsewhere called "Two Movements for String Quartet," are very early Ligeti works dating from 1950; they have been recorded only once before, by the Arditti Quartet, in the first volume of the Ligeti Edition as begun by Sony while the composer still lived.This Naxos release, Ligeti: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2, is the debut recording of the...
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