Jake Heggie's opera 'Dead Man Walking'

John Birge (0:04)

This is the Composers Datebook for October 8th. I'm John Burge. On today's date in 1992, one of the strangest, and some would say most strikingly original, violin concertos of the late 20th century had its premiere in Cologne. It was written by the Transylvanian born Hungarian composer, George Ligeti.

Ligeti became famous in the west when some of his music appeared in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film, 2001 Kubrick used Ligeti's music to evoke the eerie and empty vastness of outer space. And in fact, Ligeti was fascinated by the sounds that traditional orchestral instruments make when pressed to the extreme limits of their range, their own sonic outer limits. There's some of that in Ligeti's 1992 violin concerto, plus a dash of the traditionally melancholic Hungarian strain, familiar from the music of Ligeti's famous compatriot, Béla Varta. Finally, tossed in for good measure, is Ligeti's puckish fondness for thumbing his nose at life, the universe, and traditional concert hall decor.

As if to counterbalance his melancholic strain, or maybe just express it in a more surprising way, there's a good deal of the clown in Ligeti, who includes a chorus of bocarinas in the score of his violent concerto. Composers Datebook is produced by APM, American Public Media, in collaboration with the American Composers Forum, reminding you that all music was once new.