Ligeti's Requiem

I'm so bored that I'm going to review Ligeti's requiem.

The first movement, Introitus, is actually quite interesting. It mostly consists of low notes and dissonances, particularly on bassoon, horn, and the choir. The choral slides however, sound very... um... sick, and the horns sound like moaning ghouls, but being the crazy musician that I am, I quite like this, for some reason. Towards the end of the movement, some of the higher pitched instruments and voices join in with the moaning and dissonance. This is used to a good effect, although not one that would be widely enjoyed.

The second movement, Kyrie, is similar in manner to the first movement. The choir sounds like moaning, but this time, the intruments are often quite strong, and not always dissonant. The effect is good, although rather disturbing. It is reminiscent of video game and movie music, although far more dissonant. There is a very loud section about 2 minutes in, which is basically just loud moaning. Again, I did enjoy this, although at times, the dissonance was overwhelming. Unfortunately, this movement crashed my computer halfway through. Damn acers.

The third movement... well... the THIRD MOVEMENT IS HILARIOUS. It is so ridiculous it makes me laugh every time I hear it. It is full of random dissonance and general randomness. The less said here, the better.

The fourth movement again returns to the "moaning ghouls" idea, this time with solo female ghouls. Well, actually, the ideas are probably different, they just sound the same. It is again interesting, but like movement 1, it does drag on a bit. Still interesting though.

I give it a surprising 6.75/10. The 1st, 2nd, and 4th movements were actually fairly good, just the 3rd was ridiculous and had way too many random leaps and loud dissonances.