The exceptional French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is frequently described as a brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary. And while he is a celebrated interpreter of the standard repertoire, he is also a key figure in contemporary music.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Aimard entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 12 and studied with Yvonne Loriod, who had only recently married Olivier Messiaen. As Aimard remembered, “I could hear Messiaen improvising, and he held extra classes for me, analysing the pieces I was playing. It was a musical dream.”

Throughout his remarkable career, Aimard has been the pianist of choice for leading contemporary composers as a collaborator and interpreter, and to celebrate his birthday on 9 September, let’s take a look at how he helped bring György Ligeti’s Études pour piano to life.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard plays Ligeti: Étude No. 13, “L’escalier du diable”

Kindred Spirits

György Ligeti (1984)

Aimard played Schoenberg at the age of seven, and his interest in contemporary music developed rapidly. He grew up with Boulez’s music and was invited to become the principal pianist of the Ensemble InterContemporain.

By the mid-1980s, Aimard began to collaborate regularly with György Ligeti, who chose Aimard to record his complete piano works for Sony and dedicated several of his Études to him.

For Aimard, Ligeti is one of the greatest composers of the 20^th century. He admired the way Ligeti remained deeply connected to his own time while developing a highly individual musical language. Essentially, he remained unmistakably himself.

Aimard recalls that Ligeti had deep and powerful roots in the history of the arts, yet was always looking towards the future. Never afraid to speak his mind, Ligeti would be direct and honest, and not necessarily diplomatic. Clearly, in Ligeti, Aimard had found a kindred spirit.

György Ligeti: Études, Book 2: No. 7. Galamb Borong (Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano)

György Ligeti: Études, Book 2: No. 8. Fém (Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano)

György Ligeti: Études, Book 2: No. 9. Vertige (Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano)

Technique Becomes Music

György Ligeti composed his cycle of devilishly difficult 18 Études for solo piano between 1985 and 2001. He continues in the tradition of the virtuoso piano writing seen in Chopin, Liszt and Godowsky, and Andrew Clements has described the Études as “the most important additions to the solo-piano repertoire in the last half-century.”

Technically way beyond the abilities of mere mortals, these works are shaped by influences taken from the polyrhythmic player-piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow to the music of sub-Saharan Africa, and from chaos theory to the minimalism of Steve Reich.

In his Études, Ligeti effectively created a new pianistic vocabulary, while remaining exuberantly himself. These works are not designed to improve the player’s technical facilities, as technique is the music.

Pianistic and physical difficulties become the compositional material, as Ligeti explores conflicting rhythmic patterns between the hands, including polyrhythms and cross-rhythms. We find extreme leaps across the keyboard, complex accents and shifting metres, and illusions of acceleration and deceleration. The result can sound simultaneously mechanical and organic.

György Ligeti: Études, Book 3: No. 15. White on White (Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano)

Making the Impossible Sound Natural

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (2014)

Aimard’s performances require phenomenal technical control. But clearly, that’s not enough. He actually makes the impossible sound completely natural, uncovering music full of imagination and emotion.

Aimard also helped to bring Ligeti’s music into the mainstream. This was not just some exotic corner of contemporary music, but a collection that easily stands alongside the great piano cycles of the past.

Aimard recorded the first fifteen Études under Ligeti’s artistic supervision for Sony between December 1995 and May 1996. At that point, “Book Three” of the set was still being written, and Aimard eventually recorded the remaining works as part of “The Ligeti Project” for Teldec.

Thanks to Aimard’s recordings, the Études became a regular feature of the repertoire of adventurous pianists. Aimard did not simply master the music but also revealed the extraordinary musical world beneath its technical demands.

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György Ligeti: Études, Book 1: No. 1. Désordre (Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano)

György Ligeti: Études, Book 1: No. 2. Cordes à vide (Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano)

György Ligeti: Études, Book 1: No. 3. Touches bloquées (Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano)