Born in 1923, Hungarian-Austrian composer György Ligeti emerged as one of the most significant figures in post-World War II music. Although the war interrupted his musical education and the Hungarian Communist regime fettered his creativity, his move to the West in the 1950s changed everything. Free to give voice to his wide-ranging interests, from Renaissance to African music, from the writings of Lewis Carroll to fractal geometry, Ligeti developed his love of intricate textures, interest in expanding the possibilities of sound, and innovative use of rhythm. 

While Ligeti began sketching his Piano Concerto around 1980, it was not until 1985 that the work took shape, and it continued to evolve even after the first performance. Initially premiered in Graz, Austria, in October 1986 by pianist Anthony di Bonaventura and the Vienna Philharmonic under the direction of Mario di Bonaventura, the concerto consisted of three movements. After hearing the work twice, Ligeti was not satisfied. “I came to the conclusion that the third movement is not an adequate finale,” he noted. “My feeling of form demanded continuation, a supplement.” The following year, he added two more movements, and in 1988, Anthony di Bonaventura and the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by Mario di Bonaventura, premiered the revised version. Ultimately, Ligeti felt the concerto was a profound musical statement. As he later wrote, 

I present my artistic credo in the Piano Concerto: I demonstrate my independence from criteria of the traditional avantgarde, as well as the fashionable postmodernism. Musical illusions which I consider to be also so important are not a goal in itself for me, but a foundation for my aesthetical attitude. I prefer musical forms which have a more object-like than processual character. Music as "frozen" time, as an object in imaginary space evoked by music in our imagination, as a creation which really develops in time, but in imagination it exists simultaneously in all its moments. The spell of time, the enduring its passing by, closing it in a moment of the present is my main intention as a composer.

Ligeti’s interest in different sounds is evident in the unusual instrumentation of the Piano Concerto. Apart from the alto ocarina doubling the clarinet, the orchestra does not appear unusual. The percussion section tells a different story, however, consisting of triangles, crotales, suspended cymbals, woodblocks, templeblocks, tambourines, snare drums, bongos, tomtoms, bass drums, güiro, castanets, whips, siren whistles, signal whistle, slide whistle, flexatone, chromatic harmonica, glockenspiel, and xylophone. In the rhythmically complex Vivace molto ritmico e preciso (Very lively, rhythmic, and precise), two time signatures are used simultaneously throughout. In the virtuosic piano part, each hand plays six-note scales. The frenzied movement proceeds without pause into the slow Lento e deserto (Slow and barren), which initially offers a bit of repose after the opening frenzy before dissolving into a bleak world filled with sounds that the composer meant to recall the mourning of women at Eastern European funerals. According to Ligeti, the dense layers of the Allegro risoluto (Resolutely lively) are inspired by computer-generated images of fractals, geometric shapes with a detailed structure at any scale and a similar appearance at different magnifications. Rather than offering a grand conclusion, the Presto luminoso (Very fast and luminous), the shortest of the five movements, ends the work on a somewhat ambiguous note.  

—©Jennifer More, 2025