Ligeti - Lux Aeterna
Susanne van Els (viola)
Cappella Amsterdam, musicFabrik, Daniel Reuss
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.
Ligeti - Lux Aeterna
Susanne van Els (viola)
Cappella Amsterdam, musicFabrik, Daniel Reuss
Purchase product
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.
About
Both Ligeti and Heppener belong to the generation born in the 1920s which formed the basis for the post-war avant-garde. Lux Aeterna, used by Stanley Kubrick in his film 2001: A Space Odyssey, marked the installation of a new musical language. The later Sonata for solo viola simultaneously evokes the polyphony of the 14th century and certain varieties of ethnic music. Im Gestein, a cycle of lieder to poems by Paul Celan which won Heppener the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize in 1993, is here recorded for the first time. In 1990, Daniel Reuss, lately of the RIAS Kammerchor, and soon to take up the baton with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, became director of Cappella Amsterdam, which he turned into the full-time professional ensemble that is now one of the most sought-after in the Netherlands. His previous recording of works by Robert Heppener with the Nederlands Kammerchor received an Edison Award. Future recordings with Capella Amsterdam will include a disc of Sweelinck for harmonia mundi.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
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.
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.
