2023 marks the centenary of the birth of composer György Ligeti. French soprano saxophonist supreme, Emile Parisien, and Italian pianist, Roberto Negro – widely considered to be one of the most exciting pianists in Europe, on account of his own projects and his collaboration with the Ceccaldi brothers – choose to focus on Ligeti in their duo album, ‘Les Métanuits’.

Parisien and Negro found that one thing they were in agreement about was their favourite piece by Ligeti: the String Quartet No. 1 ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’, and this was to lead to repeated encounters with the piece for them.

Whereas Ligeti valued improvisation in jazz, he didn’t make use of it in his compositions. Parisien and Negro proceed with seemly respect: “The original motifs, moods and colours shine forth again and again. Harmonically, we expanded them with our ideas,” explains Negro. “The original string quartet is only about 22 minutes long. In our album version it has become 45 minutes. When we play it live, it becomes even longer. So, to make up for this, we shortened the title and turned ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’ into ‘Métanuits’,” he adds, with a knowing smile.

‘Métanuits’ is a fascinating endeavour: a wonderful piece of craftsmanship in which everything seems to interlock. There is high- wire virtuosic playing, exploration of all the tonal possibilities of the instruments by both players. Tempi tend to be on the fast side: (with the indications on the sections ‘allegro’, ‘presto’ or ‘prestissimo’ setting the pace), but with a ‘largo’ to catch breath at the end. There is also a surprising lyrical warmth, as the pair follow each other through constantly changing reframings of the theme, which takes on an irresistible expressiveness.

“The overlaps between classical music and jazz are particularly close to my heart. The boundaries between these genres no longer have to exist,” is Roberto Negro’s view. And this is something he and Emile Parisien prove, through the natural flow and the surprising approachability of ‘Les Métanuits’. In their homage to Ligeti, they don’t even bother with the historicising conventions and barriers of an old, abstract or arcane avant-garde. Instead, they let this beguilingly contemporary music resound – and reveal its astonishing communicative strengths.