György Kurtág

Opportunities to hear György Kurtág's music are all too rare, although the Aldeburgh Festival did something to rectify this last summer: Pierre-Laurent Aimard is clearly a fan. Our next project features Kurtág's Signs, Games and Messages , when we will be performing six selected movements:

I: Hommage à J.S.B.
II: Népdalféle
III: Jelek VI
IV: Panaszos nóta
V: Hommage à Ránki György
VI: The Carenza Jig

Jo Kirkbride has written: 'Born in Romania in 1926, Kurtág’s musical career began with piano and composition lessons from the age of 14, and it was not long before Kurtág began dreaming of joining Béla Bartók’s composition class at the Lizst Academy in Budapest. Sadly, news of Bartók’s death came shortly before he was able to join the Academy, but this disappointment brought Kurtág closer to a fellow student who was also lamenting his loss: György Ligeti. The two composers developed a lifelong friendship, built upon a shared outlook on music and an insatiable curiosity for life. Quoting Ligeti after his death, Kurtág noted their shared ambition, which rested on a desire to inspect and question at all times: ‘As different as the criteria for art and science are, they are similar in that those who work in them are driven by curiosity. The key thing in both areas is to investigate coherences still undiscovered by others, and to create structures that haven't existed until now.’

While typically concise and elegantly executed, Kurtág’s music sets out to explore the complexities of life and to distil these ideas into musical form. As Zoran Minderovic writes: ‘Spellbinding, expressive, mysterious, and deeply engaging, Kurtág's music is a constant effort to describe the indescribable, to explore the human microcosm, to shed light on the human experience.’ His fascination with the fragility of life derives in part from his interest in the works of Samuel Beckett, a trait which is reflected throughout his oeuvre by a fascination with musical games and signs, and with the potential expressivity of silence.

Signs, Games and Messages is itself a game, playing upon the titles of Kurtág's earlier works: Signs, Op. 5 is a work for viola written in 1961, Games for piano was begun in 1973 and Messages of the Late R V Troussova, Op. 17 was written between 1976-80 for soprano and chamber ensemble. Kurtág's ‘reuse’ of earlier works also extends to the musical material – a number of the movements from Signs, Games and Messages also appear elsewhere in earlier works, though Kurtág hoped that by ‘reassembling’ them into an alternative work he might draw attention to similarities and connections that would otherwise go unnoticed. This unusual approach to compositional development extends forwards as well as backwards: as well as reusing earlier material and ideas, Kurtág also leaves compositions ‘open’, so that they might be expanded upon and developed far into the future. As such, Signs, Games and Messages does not have an Opus number, nor a date of completion.

Among the movements being performed in this project is the ‘Hommage à J.S.B’: a musical tribute to J.S. Bach, whom Kurtág admired greatly for his finely-wrought, intricate compositions. Initially written for flute, piano and double bass as part of Kurtág’s Bagatelles, Op. 14d, the movement is built around a single melodic line by Bach, whose structure implies the coexistence of two different voices within a single part. Fascinated by this kind of structural game, Kurtág explores the developmental possibilities of the melody throughout the movement, effectively carrying out an analysis of Bach’s melody through his own composition.'

You can hear this work in Cambridge (19 March), Norwich (20 March) and in Inverness (22 March), during our Bach Plus concerts with Alina Ibragimova (violin).

BBC Radio 3 broadcast

Our Aldeburgh Festival concert with Pierre-Laurent Aimard will be broadcast tonight, Monday, at 19.00 on BBC Radio 3.

Cello doubling harmonium

The difference between festival concerts and other concerts is partly the collegiality of performers, composers and creative teams engendered by the context, all working together in one place over a period of time. Only at a festival such as Aldeburgh would two eminent pianists perform on the celeste in the same concert and a front-desk cellist double on harmonium. Modest moments in themselves, perhaps, but indicative of the kind of concert programme which integrates the performers fully, enabling the compelling sequence of Webern, Schoenberg, Kurtag and Ives at the centre of our concert on Friday with Pierre-Laurent Aimard to make maximum impact. We await the view from the packed press gallery, but the audience seemed to be enjoying themselves. You can hear this programme again on Thursday in Cambridge (still a few tickets available as of today) or catch the BBC Radio 3 broadcast of the Aldeburgh concert on 26 June: I'll put the links on the blog nearer the time.
And thence on Sunday morning to Aldeburgh Church where our string principals were playing in a liturgical performance of Schubert's Mass in G (D.167), with a Mozart Epistle Sonata included for good measure. This service will be on Radio 4 on Sunday 29 June: again, more details later.

The Answered Unanswered Question

Our thanks to the Aldeburgh Festival and writer Marc Dooley for these notes on the two works by Kurtag we are performing in Aldeburgh on Saturday and in Cambridge on 19 June: 'This cosmic landscape is encountered by György Kurtág in his Ligatura – Message to Frances-Marie (The answered unanswered question) Op.31/b written in 1989 for (and to) the cellist Frances-Marie Uitti who has pioneered a technique for playing the cello with two bows, one above, one below the strings. The piece exists in three versions, for two-bow cello, two violins and celesta; for two cellos, two violins and celesta (as today); or for two organs and celesta (or upright piano). As with Ives, Kurtág places his three musical elements far apart from each other in the performing space, this exploration of physical space being an important aspect of several of his major works from this period. Kurtág references Ives’s ‘Silences’ with slow moving cello chords. These are juxtaposed with chords (at first the same chords transposed up a fifth) played by the two violins, unsynchronized with the cellos. Finally the celesta joins in with three final chords bringing the ensemble together for the first time. Is this the answer? Can you even answer an unanswered question? The celesta part was left out in the world première. Haydn would surely have enjoyed the ambiguity, but Kurtág’s message to Frances-Marie remains private.'

'Mihály Andrásnak Irka-Firka születésnapra, (Doodles for András Mihály’s Birthday; also known as Irka-Firka) was composed on 6 November 1991, Mihály’s 74th birthday, and revised in April 1994, shortly after his death. András Mihály was a cellist, composer, conductor and friend of Kurtág’s. He is the dedicatee of Kurtág’s 12 Microludes for string quartet, in which his cello concerto is referenced, and is remembered in the last movement of Stele for large orchestra written at the time of his death and based on an earlier Játékok piano piece also dedicated to him. This affectionate birthday tribute places two violins and two violas at a distance from the central cello and double bass – the ensemble seems to echo the essence of some folk tune before disappearing into silence.'

György Kurtág

György Kurtág is a featured composer at the Aldeburgh Festival this year. We are playing Irka-Firka and Ligatura - Message to Frances Marie [The Answered Unanswered Question] there on Saturday. You might like to read Paul Griffiths' excellent feature on Kurtág in the Financial Times.

Britten Sinfonia at the Aldeburgh Festival

Just a week or so to go until the first of our three appearances this year at the Aldeburgh Festival: 14 June with Pierre-Laurent Aimard; 15 June at the Festival Service; and 23 June with Polina Leschenko. Returns only, I understand, for the first concert, but there are still tickets available for the 23rd.

Of cricket and mandalas

We first met the Tibetan monks from the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery during the 2006 Aldeburgh Festival. A cricket challenge between the admin staff of Britten Sinfonia and the Festival had been set up, the day before the monks were to give a concert there. I don’t recall how we found out, but it transpired they were also cricket mad, so we invited them to take part: we had a great match.

They have come back to the East of England this week for the Heart of the World Festival in Cambridge, so the idea of a return match was irresistible. I won’t give details of the score yesterday (we were hammered), but it was good to meet up with our friends again. The Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in South India was re-establshed in 1972 and is now home to some 300 monks in exile. The touring group not only gives concerts (you can hear them tonight at the Cambridge Corn Exchange) but also creates sand mandalas, the intricate construction of the image of a Buddha’s palace, incorporating within it the entire cosmos, with millions of grains of coloured sand. Since Sunday they have been creating a mandala in King’s College Chapel, a setting juxtaposing both two of the world’s great religions, and exquisite art and architecture.

The finished mandala in King's


The destruction ceremony


The sand is carried from the Chapel to the Cam: the blessed grains of sand are poured into running water to spread their benefit as far as possible.