New York has heard a lot from Gyorgy Ligeti, and Jonathan Nott, lately. Mr. Ligeti is a Hungarian born composer in his 80s, and Mr. Nott is an English conductor, in his 40s. This dynamic Englishman is chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, in Germany, and principal guest conductor of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, in Paris. (This is the ensemble founded by Pierre Boulez in the 1970s, for the propagation of new music.)

Earlier in the month, Mr. Nott led the Bamberg in two concerts, which included two orchestral works by Mr. Ligeti: One was “Atmospheres,” a piece used by Stanley Kubrick in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The concerts also saw Pierre-Laurent Aimard playing 12 piano etudes by Mr. Ligeti. Mr. Aimard is a Frenchman who is a major champion of this composer, and who for years was a member of the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Mr. Nott gave concerts with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, in the Rose Theater, part of Jazz at Lincoln Center (or, as I prefer to think of it, Jazz at Columbus Circle). The first of these concerts presented “Chaplin-Operas,” by the British composer Benedict Mason. The music played as three of Charlie Chaplin’s comedies unspooled on a screen. And the second concert began with Mr. Ligeti’s piano concerto, written in the mid-1980s. The soloist with Mr. Nott and the Ensemble Intercontemporain was Michael Wendeberg, a German born in 1974 who also studies conducting, with Mr. Boulez.

How did the concerto go? I’m afraid I can’t tell you, because your critic – owing to a comedy of errors almost worthy of Chaplin – was late for the concert, unable even to put his ear to the door. (Well, he could have, but everything at Jazz at Lincoln Center is new and solid.)

So let us move on to the second – and final – work on the program, “Jagden und Formen,” by Wolfgang Rihm. Mr. Rihm is a top composer in Germany, and in Europe generally, and New Yorkers heard his “Two Other Movements” earlier in the season. This was performed – these were performed? – by Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic, which, indeed, had commissioned the work. Mr. Rihm is also known for the violin-and-orchestra piece he wrote for Anne-Sophie Mutter, and I am especially keen to mention a song cycle he wrote for Marjana Lipovseky , the great Slovenian mezzo. These are the “Lavant-Gesange,” which set poems of an Austrian poet name Christine Lavant, who lived a very sad life (1915-73).

“Jagden und Formen” means “Hunting and Forms,” and the work may be thought of as, in part, a hunt for forms. As Paul Schiavo informed us in his program notes, “Jagden und Formen” builds on three previous works by Mr. Rihm: “Gejagte Form” (“Hunted Form”), “Verborgene Formen” (“Hidden Forms”), and “Gedrangte Form” (“Harried Form”). “Jagden und Formen” itself has experienced three different versions, the last of which was premiered in 2001. Apparently, Mr. Rihm is still not ready to pronounce himself finished with the work – although it was recorded by another “Ensemble,” the Ensemble Modern (on Deutsche Grammophon).

In any case, “Jagden und Formen” received its first American performance on Wednesday night.

The instruments required for the work are various and unusual: They include a contrabassoon, a contra-bass clarinet, a bass tuba, a guitar, a harp, a string of gongs, bongos. Modern works have a tendency to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. A pair of excited concertgoers in front of me enthused about this instrumental collection. The question, of course, is what a composer does with these instruments – which is why they’re called “instruments.”

“Jagden und Formen” takes off like a shot – with a literal shot, sounded from the percussion – rather like Ravel’s G-major piano concerto. Then two violins are fiddling angrily together, or perhaps in opposition to each other. We can hear the hunting, but may not be sure who is the hunter and who is the hunted. The music is relentless, anxious, and very, very busy. Sometimes it comes across as barely differentiated noise. We hear toots, pluckings, growls, flutterings, warbles, bangings (on the piano). Modern music is full of forest and jungle sounds, and we get plenty of them here. When the score is at its loudest, Mr. Rihm seems to give us the sonic equivalent of that Munch painting, “The Scream.”

In spots, the music is surprising, clever, sly. Like many of his colleagues, Mr. Rihm engages in interesting uses of rhythm, particularly where rests are concerned. And the percussion he has assembled does not go to waste.

Yet, to me, there seems something experimental – overly experimental – about this work, as though Mr. Rihm is trying to figure something out for himself. It is not so much music as material that may become music. A painter might as well be displaying his sketchbooks. The work is very long – or at least it feels that way – and, in my judgment, does not sustain interest. It now and then seems like a soundtrack, and I might have liked a Chaplin film, or some other movie, to look at.

Of course, such music – Boulezian music – is ordinarily beyond criticism: untouchable. To object to it is to reveal yourself as an incredible square, or dullard. Remember the rule: Contemporary music cannot be bad (unless it is “conservative,” in which case, blast away); it is either uncomprehended or unappreciated.

The audience certainly loved what it was hearing, whether out of genuine sympathy or musico-political correctness, who can say? After the work was over, they cheered and yelled like a stadium crowd for the Three Tenors.

Wolfgang Rihm and similar composers are unquestionably lucky to have the advocacy of Jonathan Nott. He is a superb manager of affairs, being crisp, precise, and no-nonsense in his conducting. He often evinced a coiled energy. And the Ensemble Intercontemporain played with obvious commitment. Surely, however, some entrances, and notes, were approximate.