György Kurtág

"Kurtág" redirects here. For his wife, see Márta Kurtág.
The native form of this personal name is Kurtág György. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

György Kurtág
Kurtág in 2014 by Lenke Szilágyi [hu]
Born (1926-02-19) 19 February 1926 (age 100)
Lugoj, Romania
Occupations
  • Composer
  • pianist
WorksList of compositions
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1947; died 2019)​
Awards

György Kurtág (Hungarian: [ˈɟørɟ ˈkurtaːɡ]; born 19 February 1926) is a Hungarian composer of contemporary classical music and pianist.[1] According to Grove Music Online, his style draws on "Bartók, Webern and, to a lesser extent, Stravinsky", and "his work is characterized by compression in scale and forces, and by a particular immediacy of expression".[2] In 2023 he was described as "one of the last living links to the defining postwar composers of the European avant-garde".[3]

Kurtág was an academic teacher of piano at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music from 1967, later also of chamber music, and taught until 1993. For decades, Kurtág and his wife Márta gave recitals on one piano of selections from his ten-volume collection Játékok and his Bach transcriptions.

Life and career

György Kurtág was born on 19 February 1926 in Lugoj, Romania, to Jewish Hungarian parents. He spoke Hungarian, Romanian, and German early.[4] From the age of 14, he took piano lessons from Magda Kardos and studied composition with Max Eisikovits in Timișoara.[5][6] He moved to Budapest in 1946 and became a Hungarian citizen in 1948. There, he began his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where he met his wife, Márta Kinsker, as well as composer György Ligeti, who became a close friend. His piano teacher at the academy was Pál Kadosa. He studied composition with Sándor Veress and Ferenc Farkas, chamber music with Leó Weiner, and theory with Lajos Bárdos, and graduated in piano and chamber music in 1951.[7] He married Márta in 1947 and their son György [fr] was born in 1954.[2] He received his degree in composition in 1955,[7] with a viola concerto that received the Erkel Prize.[8]

Following the Hungarian uprising in 1956, Kurtág planned to emigrate, like Ligeti, but was hindered by circumstances.[8] He was able to live in Paris between 1957 and 1958, a time of critical importance for him, studying with Max Deutsch, Olivier Messiaen, and Darius Milhaud, discovering the plays by Samuel Beckett and scores by Anton Webern. He suffered from severe depression, saying: "I realized to the point of despair that nothing I had believed to constitute the world was true",[9] and that he "felt like a cockroach trying to become human".[8] Kurtág received therapy from art psychologist Marianne Stein, who encouraged him to work from the simplest musical elements, extremely small tonal connections arranged in mosaic-like patterns, musical gestures like a breath or a sigh, using "economical, compressed, essential" cells.[8] The encounter revivified him and stimulated his artistic development.[8][10]

Travelling home, Kurtág listened in Cologne to Ligeti's Artikulation and Stockhausen's Gruppen. The string quartet he composed in 1959 after his return to Budapest marks a crucial turning point; he calls it his Opus 1.[8]

Kurtág worked as a répétiteur at the Bartók Music School (1958–63)[2] and at the National Philharmonia in Budapest (1960–68).[10] In 1967, he was appointed professor of piano and later also of chamber music at the Franz Liszt Academy, where he taught until 1993.[10] During this time his students included Zoltán Kocsis[11] and András Schiff.[12]

Kurtág's first international opportunity for recognition was in 1968 when his largest work to date, The Sayings of Peter Bornemisza,[13] was performed by Erika Sziklay and Lóránt Szűcs at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music.[14] The critical response was not positive, and it was overshadowed by Stockhausen's Musik für ein Haus.[8] Kurtág's international recognition began to grow in 1981 with the premiere in Paris of Messages of the Late Miss R.V. Troussova for soprano and chamber ensemble.[8][15][16]

Kurtág has written a few orchestral works, such as Stele for the Berlin Philharmonic and Messages, but his primary forms of expression are fragments, bagatelles, moments, games, and splinters.[8] He composed an opera, Fin de partie to a libretto he derived from Beckett's Endgame, which premiered at La Scala in Milan[8] on 15 November 2018,[17] eight years after the original commission.[18]

Kurtág has held master classes in chamber music.[19][20] Since the early 1990s, he has worked abroad with increasing frequency: he was composer in residence at the Berlin Philharmonic (1993–95) and the Vienna Konzerthaus Society (1995).[7] He then lived in the Netherlands (1996–98), again in Berlin (1998–99) and upon invitation by Ensemble intercontemporain, Cité de la Musique, and Festival d'Automne, in Paris (1999–2001).

Márta and György Kurtág, 2014

Kurtág and his wife lived near Bordeaux from 2002 to 2015, when they moved back to Budapest. They performed together for 60 years, in concert, for radio, and in recordings.[21] The couple played a selection of pieces for two- and four-hand piano from Kurtág's ten-volume collection Játékok and Bach transcriptions.[22][23] They appeared in 2004 when Kurtág was the featured composer of the Rheingau Musik Festival.[24][25] When he received the gold medal from the Royal Philharmonic Society in London in 2013, they played at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.[26] A reviewer for The Guardian wrote:

Some of Kurtág's duets interlace the players' hands so that one person must stretch across the other in a game of musical Twister; in this familiar embrace, husband and wife played them with beautiful understatement. They included some of Kurtág's duet transcriptions of Bach which, often underpinned by bass lines chuntering quietly at the extreme bottom of the keyboard, sounded affectionate, quirky and wholly delightful.[26]

Márta died in October 2019.[27]

Music

See also: List of compositions by György Kurtág
The beginning of the piece "Hommage à Tchaikovsky" from Játékok, parodying the opening of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. Kurtág uses special notation in some of the pieces. In the score above, the large black dots mean "play with both palms laid side by side".

According to scholar Rachel Beckles Willson, "Kurtág composes painstakingly and haltingly: in 1985, when he was 59, his output had reached only Op. 23, and several works remained unfinished or had been withdrawn for revision."[2]

Kurtág's compositions are often made up of many very brief movements. Kafka Fragments, for instance, is an approximately 55-minute song cycle for soprano and solo violin made up of 40 short movements, setting extracts from Franz Kafka's writings, diaries, and letters.[28] Music journalist Tom Service wrote that Kurtág's music "involved reducing music to the level of the fragment, the moment, with individual pieces or movements lasting mere seconds, or a minute, perhaps two."[1] Most extreme of all, his piano piece "Flowers We Are, Mere Flowers", from the eighth volume of Játékok ("Games"), consists of just seven notes.[1] Because of this interest in miniatures, Kurtág's music is often compared to Webern's.[29]

Until Stele, Op. 33, written for the Berlin Philharmonic and Claudio Abbado, Kurtág's compositions were mainly vocal solo and choral music and instrumental music ranging from solo pieces to works for chamber ensembles of increasing size. Since Stele, a number of large-scale compositions have premiered, such as Messages, Op. 34, New Messages, Op. 34a, and the double concerto …concertante…, Op. 42.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Kurtág wrote several works in which the spatial distribution of instruments plays an important role. His … quasi una fantasia… for piano and ensemble (1988) is the first piece in which he explores the idea of music that spatially embraces the audience.[30][31]

Kurtág's music has been called a dialogue with poets such as Beckett, Kafka, and Anna Akhmatova and composers such as Bach, Beethoven, and Berg, to whom he has alluded and for whom he wrote homages in appreciation of their art and worldviews.[8]

Most of Kurtág's music is published by Editio Musica Budapest,[32] some by Universal Edition, Vienna,[33] and some by Boosey & Hawkes, London.[34]

Recognition

Kurtág with students, 2014

Kurtág has received numerous awards, including Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1985, the Kossuth Award of the Hungarian government for his life achievement in 1973, the Austrian Ehrenzeichen in 1996, and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 1998.[35] He is also a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, and of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin (both since 1987), and was named an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001.[35] In 2006, he received the Grawemeyer Award for his composition …concertante…, Op. 42, for violin, viola and orchestra.[36]

In 2024 Kurtág received the Wolf Prize, an international award granted in Israel, "for his contribution to the world's cultural heritage, which is fundamentally inspirational and human".[37]

Kurtág received the 2014 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of Contemporary Music for, in the view of the jury, its "rare expressive intensity". "The novel dimension of his music", the citation continues, "lies not in the material he uses but in its spirit, the authenticity of its language, and the way it crosses borders between spontaneity and reflection, between formalism and expression."[38][39][40]

The Ensemble Modern and soloists performed his works Opp. 19, 31b and 17. On the occasion of his 80th birthday in February 2006, the Budapest Music Centre honoured him with a festival in his hometown.[35]

On 19 February 2026, Kurtág turned 100.[8][41][42][43] A festival of his music was held in Budapest,[4] including the world premiere of his second opera, Die Stechardin, dedicated to his wife,[41] in his presence.[44]

Awards

Honorary doctorates

References

  1. ^ a b c Service, Tom (12 March 2013). "A guide to György Kurtág's music". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d Willson 2002.
  3. ^ Poore, Benjamin (30 August 2023). "György Kurtág contemplates his endgame". Engelsberg ideas.
  4. ^ a b UE 100 2026.
  5. ^ "György Kurtág, unul din cei mai importanți compozitori născuți la Lugoj, omagiat la Budapesta". lugojeanul.ro. 22 January 2024.
  6. ^ Vasilescu, Irina (29 March 2009). "Interviu cu compozitorul György Kurtag". romania-muzical.ro. Archived from the original on 28 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  7. ^ a b c György Kurtág Archived 28 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine biography, UE
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Sandner 2026.
  9. ^ Murray, David (18 September 2006). "Master of the finely wrought fragment". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 4 June 2023. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  10. ^ a b c "György Kurtág". info.bmc.hu. Archived from the original on 15 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  11. ^ Várnai, Péter P. (2002) [2001]. "Kocsis, Zoltán". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.15241. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. Archived from the original on 16 April 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2023. (subscription, Wikilibrary access, or UK public library membership required)
  12. ^ Plaistow, Stephen (2002) [2001]. "Schiff, András". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.42848. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. Archived from the original on 15 April 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2023. (subscription, Wikilibrary access, or UK public library membership required)
  13. ^ "Kurtág: The sayings of Peter Bornemisza for soprano and piano". Universal Edition. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  14. ^ Walsh, S. (1 November 2006). "Gyorgy Kurtag: The Sayings of Peter Bornemisza, Op. 7: A Concerto for Soprano and Piano. By Rachel Beckles Willson. pp. xvi + 192; CD. Landmarks in Music since 1950. (Ashgate, Aldershot and Burlington, Vt., 2004, 35. ISBN 0-7546-0809-3.)". Music and Letters. 87 (4): 667–670. doi:10.1093/ml/gcl009. ISSN 0027-4224. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  15. ^ Rutherford-Johnson, Tim (16 February 2026). "The giving of gifts: Pierre-Laurent Aimard on György Kurtág". Bachtrack. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  16. ^ Clements, Andrew (4 January 2008). "CD: Kurtág: Messages of the Late Miss RV Troussova; Widmann: ... umdustert ..." The Guardian. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  17. ^ "Fin de partie – Teatro alla Scala". www.teatroallascala.org. Archived from the original on 27 October 2017. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  18. ^ Clements, Andrew (19 November 2018). "Fin de Partie review – Kurtág's compelling musical testament". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 1 January 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  19. ^ "Masterclass by György Kurtág with Kelemen Quartet". BMC – Budapest Music Center. Archived from the original on 15 November 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  20. ^ "Festival Academy Budapest Presents: Masterclass with György Kurtág". The Violin Channel. 30 July 2025. Archived from the original on 31 July 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  21. ^ "György Kurtág" (in French). France Musique. 21 October 2019. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  22. ^ "György Kurtág Biography". Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung. 10 September 2025. Archived from the original on 14 October 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  23. ^ The Cross-Eyed Pianist (3 December 2013). "An afternoon with György and Márta Kurtág". The Cross-Eyed Pianist. Archived from the original on 2 June 2023. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  24. ^ "Rheingau Musik-Festival : Barocke Pracht, sakraler Triumph". FAZ (in German). 17 February 2004.
  25. ^ Döring, Gerd (26 January 2019). "Mit leichter Hand". FR.de (in German). Archived from the original on 11 April 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  26. ^ a b Jeal, Erica (3 December 2013). "György and Márta Kurtág/Kikuchi – review / The Hungarian composer György Kurtág showed emphatically why the Royal Philharmonic Society bestowed its gold medal on him". The Guardian (in German). Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  27. ^ Allen, David (25 October 2019). "Marta Kurtag Dies at 92, Sundering a Profound Musical Partnership". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  28. ^ "Konzerte". Kammermusik Basel (in German). 29 May 2023. Archived from the original on 18 April 2024. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  29. ^ "Vokalzyklen von György Kurtág". Deutschlandfunk (in German). 26 January 2020. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  30. ^ "...quasi una fantasia... op. 27/1 von György Kurtág". Stretta (in German). Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  31. ^ "…quasi una fantasia…, György Kurtág". Hollywood Bowl. Archived from the original on 18 November 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  32. ^ "Composers – Editio Musica Budapest Zeneműkiadó Kft". Home – Editio Musica Budapest Zeneműkiadó Kft. 19 February 1926. Archived from the original on 14 January 2026. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  33. ^ "Kurtag György". Universal Edition (in German). Archived from the original on 26 March 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  34. ^ "Composer Snapshot: György Kurtág". Boosey & Hawkes Composers and their Music. Archived from the original on 16 October 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  35. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Budapest Music Center". BMC – Budapest Music Center. 24 May 1996. Archived from the original on 13 October 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  36. ^ "2006 – György Kurtág – Grawemeyer Awards". Grawemeyer Awards. 20 July 2006. Archived from the original on 11 February 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  37. ^ a b מיכל (3 July 2024). "György Kurtág". Wolf Foundation. Archived from the original on 4 July 2024. Retrieved 5 July 2024.
  38. ^ "The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Contemporary Music category goes in this seventh edition to the Hungarian composer György Kurtág". 10 February 2015. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  39. ^ Leticia, Yustos (10 February 2015). "György Kurtág premio Fundación BBVA Fronteras del Conocimiento en la especialidad de música contemporánea". Doce Notas. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  40. ^ Miguel, Pérez Martín (10 February 2015). "György Kurtág gana el Premio BBVA de Música Contemporánea". El País (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 11 February 2015. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  41. ^ a b Preuß 2026.
  42. ^ Weidringer 2026.
  43. ^ atempo 2026.
  44. ^ Sandner review 2026.
  45. ^ "IRCLive @ BOZAR". rostrumplus.net. 19 December 2016. Archived from the original on 2 December 2022. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  46. ^ "György Kurtág". Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  47. ^ "Kurtag at 99: Hungarian Public Media Person of Year Celebrated on His Birthday With Concert". XpatLoop.com. 17 February 2026. Archived from the original on 14 February 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  48. ^ "Kurtág". ORDEN POUR LE MÉRITE (in German). Archived from the original on 5 December 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  49. ^ "Recipients of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts". Archived from the original on 1 August 2020. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  50. ^ "György Kurtág". Archived from the original on 28 August 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  51. ^ "2006– György Kurtág". 20 July 2006. Archived from the original on 6 November 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  52. ^ "Dirijorul şi compozitorul György Kurtág, la Timişoara şi la Lugoj". ziuadevest.ro. 5 October 2009. Archived from the original on 28 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  53. ^ Kurtág, György (27 April 2020). "György Kurtág: Every note in the right place". Elbphilharmonie Mediatheque. Archived from the original on 23 January 2026. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  54. ^ "Gyorgy Kurtag". Royal Philharmonic Society. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  55. ^ "Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 August 2021. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  56. ^ "The Schock Prizes reward the creation of theories, art and music". The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. 2020. Archived from the original on 16 January 2022. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  57. ^ "Ungarischer Komponist Kurtág erhält Rolf-Schock-Preis". Ungarn Heute (in German). 17 March 2020. Archived from the original on 22 July 2025. Retrieved 17 February 2026.

Cited sources

Kurtág 100

Further reading

  • Blum, Stephen (2002). "Kurtág's Articulation of Kafka's Rhythms ("Kafka-Fragmente", op. 24)". Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. T. 43 (Fasc. 3/4): 345–358. JSTOR 902594.
  • Connolly, Kate (16 August 2023). "'I compose to seek the truth': György Kurtág on depression, totalitarianism and his 73-year marriage". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 August 2023.
  • Márta Grabócz/Jean-Paul Olive (edd.). 2009.Gestes, fragments, timbres: la musique de György Kurtág. En l'honneur de son 80e anniversaire. Actes de colloque des 29, 30 et 31 mai 2006 á l'Institut hongrois de Paris; l'Harmattan, Paris, 2009
  • Márta Grabócz/Álvaro Oviedo/Jean-Paul Olive (edd.), György Kurtág: les œuvres et leur interprétation, Paris L'Harmattan 2020.
  • Griffiths, Paul (2011). "Kurtág, György". In Latham, Alison (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-957903-7. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
  • Hohmaier, Simone. 1997. "Meine Muttersprache ist Bartók...". Einfluss und Material in György Kurtágs "Quartetto per archi" op. 1 (1959); Saarbrücken, Pfau, 1997.
  • Halász, Péter. 1998. György Kurtág. Magyar zeneszerzok 3. Budapest: Mágus Kiadó. ISBN 963-8278-07-2.
  • Halász, Péter (2002). "On Kurtág's Dodecaphony". Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. T. 43 (Fasc. 3/4): 235–252. JSTOR 902586.
  • Karasz, Palko (7 November 2018). "A 92-Year-Old Composer's First Opera Is His 'Endgame'". The New York Times.
  • Kunkel, Michael. 2008. "...dire cela, sans savoir quoi...". Samuel Beckett in der Musik von György Kurtág und Heinz Holliger; Pfau, Saarbrücken, 2008.
  • Kinderman, William. 2012. The creative process in music from Mozart to Kurtág; University of Illinois Press, Urbana/IL–Chicago–Springfield, 2012.
  • Lentsner, Dina (Spring 2018). "A Composer's Literary Indulgences? Epigraphs in György Kurtág's Russian Works". Slavic and East European Journal. 62 (1): 140–159. doi:10.30851/621010. JSTOR 45408811.
  • Maréchaux, Pierre/Tosser, Grégoire Tosser. (edd.) 2009. Ligatures: la pensée musicale de György Kurtág, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes 2009.
  • György Kurtág: Great Hungarian Jewish Composer, No Monk article by Benjamin Ivry in "The Forward", including a picture of Márta and György Kurtág at the piano, 6 February 2009
  • Friedemann Sallis, Robin Elliott, Kenneth DeLong 2012 (edd.)Centre and periphery, roots and exile, Interpreting the music of István Anhalt, György Kurtág, and Sándor Veress; Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo/ON, 2012
  • Stahl, Claudia. 1998. Botschaften in Fragmenten. Die grossen Vokalzyklen von György Kurtág; PFAU, Saarbrücken, 1998
  • Varga, Bálint András. 2009. György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages. Eastman studies in Music. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. ISBN 978-1-58046-328-7. JSTOR 10.7722/j.ctt14brv6z
  • Willson, Rachel Beckles. 1998a. "The Fruitful Tension between Inspiration and Design in Kurtág's The Sayings of Péter Bornemisza op.7". Mitteilungen der Paul Sacher Stiftung 11:36–41.
  • Willson, Rachel Beckles. 1998b. "Kurtág's Instrumental Music, 1988–98". Tempo, new series, no. 207:15–21.
  • Willson. Rachel Beckles. 2004. György Kurtág, The Sayings of Peter Bornemisza, op. 7: A "Concerto" for Soprano and Piano. Landmarks in Music Since 1950. Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-0809-7
  • Willson, Rachel Beckles. 2007. Ligeti, Kurtág, and Hungarian music during the cold war; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007 (Music in the 20th Century).
  • Willson, Rachel Beckles/Fazekas, Gergely (edd.). 2025. Perspectives on the Music of György Kurtág: Performance, Language and Memory, Turnhout, Brepols 2025.
  • Walsh, Stephen (March 1982). "György Kurtág: An Outline Study (I)". Tempo. 140 (140): 11–21. doi:10.1017/S0040298200035415. JSTOR 944833. S2CID 145063951.
  • Walsh, Stephen (September 1982). "György Kurtág: An Outline Study (II)". Tempo. 142 (142): 10–19. doi:10.1017/S0040298200032526. JSTOR 944812. S2CID 143824099.
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C3%B6rgy_Kurt%C3%A1g