György Kurtág, a master of musical concision widely considered one of the greatest living composers turns 95 today, an anniversary marked with careful celebrations. The Budapest Music Centre, Kurtág’s home in recent years, has a four-day online festival with events and presentations. These include: - A Meeting of Generations: Ligeti-Kurtág-Eötvös; Petite Musique Solennelle, a concert conducted by András Keller; Messages, Games – Scenes from the Kurtágs’ Life, with 15 short films by Judit Kurtág; and a concert bringing together music of Kurtág and András Szőllősy, the senior member of the Kurtág/Ligeti generation.
Amsterdam’s Musikgebouw, meanwhile, is streaming a broad selection of Kurtág’s works including Signs, Games & Messages, Hommage à Robert Schumann, Samuel Beckett – What Is The Word, A Ligatura for Martá and more. Performers include the Asko/Schönberg ensemble.
ECM New Series has been a primary source for music of Gyorgy Kurtág since the mid-90s, when the label released Hommage à R. Sch, including Kurtág’s tribute to Robert Schumann, with Kim Kashkashian, Robert Levin and Eduard Brunner. Kashkashian went on to record Kurtág’s early Movement for Viola and Orchestra with the Netherland’s Radio Chamber Orchestra under Peter Eötvös, as well as solo viola music on the Grammy-winning album Kurtág/Ligeti. Other major recordings include Kurtág's Collected Works for Ensemble and Choir conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, Kafka-Fragmente, with András Keller and Julianne Banse, Signs, Games and Messages with Kurtág’s settings of Hölderlin and Beckett, as well as the very special recordings of Márta and György Kurtág playing György’s Játékok miniatures and Bach transcriptions. These can be heard both on the CD Játékok and, in a later rendition live from Paris’s Cité de la Musique, on the DVD/Blu-ray release Hommage à Haydée.
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