In 1954, when it was finished, Gyorgy Ligeti’s String Quartet no. 1

October 13, 2014 11:14 am
Later in life, Ligeti waggishly called his earliest works “prehistoric.”
Later in life, Ligeti waggishly called his earliest works “prehistoric.”

In 1954, when it was finished, Gyorgy Ligeti’s String Quartet no. 1 (“Metamorphoses Nocturnes”) satisfied neither side of the style wars. Taking off more or less where Bartok left off, its folk-flavored thrust and viscerality were already passe to ultraprogressives, while the piece was still too hot a potato for the musical establishment of Iron-Curtain-muffled Hungary. (The composer had to wait until 1958, after he defected, to hear it, in Vienna.) The 20-minute work’s laid out as a succession of 17 micro-movements; whatever you’re listening to at any given moment will jump-cut into something wildly different within a minute or so. In the loveliest of these, the sixth, Ligeti transmutes the uncanny, unsettling, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night style Bartok liked to use for his own slow movements into something more lyrical, a somber hymn at twilight. If you love Bartok’s quartets, which you do, you will love this, too. Members of the Seattle Symphony will play it, alongside music by Djuro Zivkovic and Andrew Norman, on the first of the season’s [untitled] new-music lobby concerts. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattle symphony.org. $20. 10 p.m. Fri., Oct. 17.

gborchert@seattleweekly.com