György Kurtág bei ECM

One of the year’s most important New Series albums is released today. The 3-CD set of György Kurtág’s Complete Works for Ensemble and Choir has already met with a 5-star review in The Guardian. “György Kurtág, who turned 91 in February, is now the grand old man of European music, and perhaps the greatest living composer,” writes Andrew Clements. “This magnificent set brings together some of Kurtág’s greatest achievements and is performed with devotional precision and commitment… De Leeuw, his ensemble and the Netherlands Radio Choir (in the choral works) are fabulously lucid guides… The set is fastidiously presented; ECM’s informative essays regularly put to shame the PR puffery that can masquerade as sleeve notes from the so-called major labels. Kurtág’s exquisitely precise music, wasting nothing, demands that attention.”