György Kurtag
Signs, Games and Messages
This is the first complete recording of the 24 Signs, Games and Messages by Hungarian composer György Kurtág. Signs, Games and Messages is a collection of very personal miniatures which Kurtág began writing almost 50 years ago, and which he continues to add to through the present day. Many have been written, dedicated or inspired by a particular person; they pass, sometimes impertinent, sad, serene, cheerful, joyful, thoughtful, or melancholic. This CD is completed by the first recordings of fo…
Landscape with Tears
At his third release for our Zeit Composer Series, the talented Italian flute player Manuel Zurria has given birth to some of the most heartbreaking music ever published by Die Schachtel. A moving and incredibly clever transcription for flutes, glass and electronics of John Dowland's 1604 masterwork Lachrimae functions as the thread between a stunning and totally rewarding series of pieces by György Kurtag, Peter Eötvos, Gavin Bryars, Mary Jane Leach, Howard Skempton, closing on a composit…
Ghosts
This is the extraordinary sequence of composers selected by Marino Formenti for his solo piano cycle Kurtág’s Ghosts, which examines how major composers from the fourteenth to the twentieth century have influenced the Hungarian composer György Kurtág. Formenti has performed the seamless cycle of seventy compositions live to considerable acclaim, and it is now available as a 2 CD set from the Vienna-based label Kairos.A typical Kurtág’s Ghosts sequence is 46 seconds of Kurtág's Hommage à Stockhau…
Kafka-Fragments
A wonderful CD, recorded under Kurtag's supervision: the hour-long Kafka Fragments, completed in 1986, is his biggest work to date: it's a characteristic cycle of 40 tiny movements, scored for soprano voice and violin, that adds up to something far greater than the sum of its parts.The text is a mosaic of quotations from Kafka's writings, diaries and letters. The cycle is divided into four parts, articulated by the two longest movements; they draw a huge range of expression from soprano Juliane …
Works for Soprano
Kurtág's attachment to speech is also to be sensed in the works from this first period of maturity, something which emerged more concretely in this CD maily cenetered around the Russian language, which he learned especially in order to read Dostoevsky, and which is almost "sacred" for him, in the way that Latin was for Stravinsky. In his Russian works, opp 16 to 19, Kurtág's response to Russian prosody transforms his musical dialect with a poignant lyricism; this is to be heard both in the works…
Works
An amazing introduction to Kurtag's complex work, this cd Gyorgy Kurtag is a modern master of the musical miniature, this 66-minute disc, containing six works, is split into nearly forty tracks, absolutely essential!
Portraitkonzert Salzburg 10.8.93
Recorded in Salzburg on August 10, 1993, this recording documents a portrait concert devoted to the music of György Kurtág that spans most of his career, from his Op. 1, first string quartet, written when he was in his forties, to works of recent years. The performers are a star-studded gallery of mostly-Hungarian musicians, many closely associated with Kurtág's music, including the pianist Zoltan Kocsis, the soprano Adrienne Csengery, the Keller Quartet, the cellist Miklos Perenyi and the compo…