Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, review: An extraordinary performance of Ligeti's Etudes

The pianist never misses a beat over a cycle of 18 etudes that stretch the human limits of playing

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Marco Borggreve)

György Ligeti’s piano études stretched the limits of what it was thought technically possible for a human – as opposed to a machine – to play. Yet the spur for their creation was his own inadequate piano technique.

He drew a parallel with Cezanne’s trouble with perspective: the apples and pears in the painter’s still-lifes seemed perpetually on the point of rolling away, and his table-cloths had the rigidly of plaster models. “But what wonders Cezanne accomplished with his harmonies of colour,” Ligeti wrote, “with his emotionally-charged geometry, with his curves, volumes, and weight-displacements! That’s what I would like to achieve: the transformation of inadequacy into professionalism.”

Pierre-Laurent Aimard is one of the very few pianists who can satisfactorily deliver these works – indeed, some of them were composed with him in mind – so to hear him play 18 of them live was a rare bonus.

Ligeti asserted that these compositions were neither tonal nor atonal, neither avant-garde nor traditional, and in no way postmodern. They proceeded from a very simple core idea, and led from simplicity to great complexity: “They behave like growing organisms,” he said.

I once asked Aimard how he approached these dense clouds of notes. “You have to use controls quite different from the traditional ones you use for the voices of a Bach fugue,” he replied. Were those controls in the brain, or the fingers? “They are both in the brain and in the physical contact. You have to find a synthesis.” But when he played, did he watch the score, or his fingers? “It depends on the étude – with some pieces I keep a very careful eye on the score.”

All of which made the sudden slide into a heap of the loose pages his assistant was turning for him at the QEH – negotiated without missing a beat – all the more remarkable. This was an extraordinary – and extraordinarily fast – performance.