György Kurtág

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György Kurtág (IPA: [ˈɟørɟ ˈkurtaːɡ]; born February 19, 1926) is a Hungarian composer of contemporary music.

György Kurtág was born on 19th February 1926 at Lugoj in Romania, not far from the birthplace of fellow Hungarian György Ligeti. Both young composers hoped to study with Bartók in Budapest in 1945, but Bartók died in America and Kurtág went on to study piano, composition and chamber music with other teachers at the Budapest Academy. Among his early works was a Korean Cantata which expressed solidarity with the North Koreans in the Korean War against the US, but he reached the age of thirty-three before he was willing to give any of his works opus numbers.

In the early 1950s the Stalinist regime in Hungary proscribed Bartók's later works, and immediately his music became a rallying call for artists taking a stand against authoritarianism. Also banned in Hungary until the mid-1950s was the music of Schoenberg, and middle and late-period Stravinsky. To escape this creative straitjacket Kurtág moved to Paris in 1957 to study music with Olivier Messiaen, Darius Milhaud and Max Deutsch. He also had consultations with the Hungarian art psychologist Marianne Stein, and it was her advice that would prove most influential on his future development. While in Paris he wrote his first String Quartet, designating it 'opus 1' to mark a decisive break from his compositions to date. He returned to Budapest in 1958, stopping for a few days in Cologne where he first heard recordings of Stockhausen's Gruppen and Ligeti's recent electronic music. This experience would also prove important in formulating his new compositional voice.

Kurtág was appointed professor of piano at the Liszt Academy, Budapest, in 1967 and became professor of chamber music soon after; he officially retired from the Academy in 1986. During his time his pupils included the renowned pianists András Schiff and Zoltán Kocsis. Between 1993 and 1995 Kurtág was composer-in-residence at the Berlin Philharmonic, and his op. 33 Στηλη (Stele) was written for the orchestra.

György Kurtág's musical language is highly individual, but it reflects several influences including J.S. Bach, Bartók, Berg, Beethoven, and Messiaen. The crucible that forged Kurtág's music ranges from Guillaume de Machaut, whose music he transcribed for piano, through French Gothic architecture to the plays of Samuel Beckett, the novels of Dostoevsky and the writings of Goethe. He speaks Romanian, Hungarian, German, French, Russian, Ancient Greek and English, and his linguistic skills are evident in the texts he has set, which include Blok, Sappho, Hölderlin, and Kafka.

Many of Kurtág's compositions are for chamber groups. Messages of the late Miss R.V. Troussova op. 17 for soprano and chamber ensemble (on poems of Rimma Dalos) was premiered in Paris in 1981 and established his reputation, while the earlier chamber concerto for soprano and piano Sayings of Péter Bornemisza is also frequently performed. His quasi una fantasia… op. 27 no. 1, first performed in 1988, was the first of several works that exploited spatial effects, an interest that dates back to his encounter with Gruppen in 1958. More recently Kurtág has written for symphonic forces, and among the champions of his larger works is Simon Rattle who programmed Grabstein für Stephan, which surrounds the audience with instruments, with Mahler’s Second Symphony in a widely acclaimed Vienna Philharmonic concert at the 1999 Salzburg Festival. This twelve minute work is an elegy for the singer, husband of Kurtág’s psychology teacher Marianne Stein.

Kurtág's music is published by Editio Musica Budapest.

[edit] Works (Selection)

- wo op. Viola Concerto
- op. 1 String Quartet No. 1
- op. 2 Wind Quintett
- op. 3 Eight Pieces for piano
- op. 4 Eight Duos for violin and cimbalom
- op. 5 Signs for viola
- op. 6c Splinters for cimbalom
- op. 6d Splinters for piano
- op. 7 The sayings of P. Bornemisza for soprano and piano
- op. 9 Four Capriccios for soprano and chamber ensemble
- op. 11 Four Songs to poems by János Pilinszky op. 11 for bass voice and ensemble
- op. 12 S. K. Remembrance Noise for soprano and violin
- op. 13 Hommage a András Mihály for string quartet
- op. 14d Bagatelles for flute, double-bass and piano
- op. 15b The Little Predicament for piccolo, trombone and guitar
- op. 16 Omaggio a Luigi Nono (to poems by A. Achmatova and R. Dalos) for mixed voices
- op. 17 Messages of the Late R. V. Troussova for soprano and chamber ensemble
- op. 20 Attila József Fragments for soprano
- op. 27/1 ... quasi una fantasia ... for piano and chamber ensemble
- Games (Játékok) 7 Volumes so far