Ligeti: the musical soul of Kubrick’s visions
From the hypnotic 2001: a Space Odyssey to the bold Eyes Wide Shut and the eerie The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s films give a prominent place to the music of the great Hungarian composer György Ligeti. Several works by the composer are in fact present throughout the director’s cinematography. In this concert, presented as part of the 12th edition of the Montreal/New Music festival on the theme of “Music and Images”, the McGill Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Alexis Hauser, performs representative pieces of these three iconic films.
Also on the programme: a premiere commissioned by the SMCQ from young composer Liam Ross Gibson, a singular emerging voice on the Canadian musical landscape, Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with soloist Alexey Shafirov, and the spectacular orchestral fresco Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Richard Strauss’s famous symphonic poem, which also majestically echoes Kubrick’s cinema.
György LIGETI, excerpts of Musica ricercata (1951-53)
György LIGETI, Lontano (1967)
Sergueï Sergueïevitch PROKOFIEV, Piano concerto no 2, op 16 (1912-13, 23)
Liam GIBSON, Continental Divide (2025) - Premiere, commission by SMCQ
Richard STRAUSS, Also sprach Zarathustra, op 30 (1896)
