Ligeti: Lux Aeterna

MARBECKS STAFF PICK: CD OF THE YEAR 2009

"In this performance [of Lux aeterna] by the astoundingly good Capella Amsterdam it sounds more meditative and less apocalyptic than it did [in Kubrick's 2001], but no less haunting." Daily Telegraph

"If the title track is the big draw here, the Dutch choir does not disappoint. The sopranos are tightrope walkers on the eternal, steady high note, staggering their breaths for a seamless sound. The held, unresolving clashes are thrilling, a torment one never wants to end. Ligeti's Viola Sonata, the Drei Phantasien, offers similar pleasures where the tenors push singing close to shouting in the mighty fortissimo." The Times

This marvellous CD intersperses two of Ligeti's works for a capella voices (the well-known "Lux Aeterna" and the later, less well-known "Three Fantasies after Friedrich Holderlin" in impeccably tuned and focussed performances) with three movements from the Sonata for Solo Viola. Completing the CD is the premiere recording of a cycle of six choral works to the poetry of Paul Celan for mixed choir, percussion and string quintet and a recording of the plainchant "Libera Me".