I wish Hamelin had recorded them or is going to recordd them. Read this:
Contributor Charles Cockey has this to say (informally, as part of an email exchange):
"I’ve not heard Hamelin do the Rzewski, regarding whom I’m in a distinct minority, it seems. I find his highly didactic intentions creating blocky overbearing pieces, albeit with sections and moments of brilliance. I’m willing to listen to MAH’s rendition, simply because I agree with you wholeheartedly as concerns his playing, period. A few years back Ligeti was in Berkeley, giving some seminars and concerts, and I heard all his then extant piano etudes played by Volker Banfield, with Ligeti (and blackboard) in attendance. Ligeti would come out after each etude and discuss and illustrate on the blackboard what it was he had in mind, and then Banfield would play the piece a second time, and we could then listen for the hidden forms Ligeti had so carefully constructed.
A few weeks later Ligeti was doing much the same in LA. My then-girlfriend, a wonderful lady, was at that time working in LA, so I drove down and spent a week or so with her and going to the Ligeti events. Mark-André Hamelin played the Études, again with Ligeti and blackboard in attendance (and I believe the premiere of one more of the at that time not completly finished set). The difference was beyond astounding. Where Banfield’s playing (and pedaling?) was mushy and indistinct, Hamelin’s was totally sharp, crisp, alive, focussed, and much much more important, totally revealing of all Ligeti’s intentions to the point that Ligeti got up from his seat not once!! Just sat and smiled and nodded, and at the end came up and shared a bow with Hamelin. I’ve been a wide-eyed more than fan of Hamelin’s from that day forth. Truly astounding and revelatory performance!! Unless you’ve heard him play these pieces, I can truthfully say that you have never heard these pieces. It’s as simple as that."
Topic: videorecording of the Ligeti etudes?