Customer Reviews

György Kurtág: Music for String Instruments

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As a member of a professional string quartet, I'm always on the lookout for new repertoire for my group to perform. I'd noticed that several Kurtag pieces had been performed (by the Emerson and Orion quartets, most recently) and wanted to see what all the buzz was about. Turns out, it was worth the purchase of this fine CD. I've always been a fan of Webern and Ligeti, and Kurtag seems to me to embody the best of these two composers' styles, while remaining very much his own distinct musical personality. The Keller Quartet plays these pieces with great virtuosity, but not at the expense of passion and what I can only describe as a "avant garde bel canto". If you have any interest in new music, and especially new music which is extraordinary, look no further than this disc.

This is an exquisite recording of some of the best in modern music. The three major pieces are Kurtag's String Quartet (op. 1) of 1959, the second quartet, 12 Microludes (op. 13), of 1977-78, and the third quartet, Officium Breve (op. 28) of 1988-89. Three shorter pieces are included as well, including two versions of Ligatura, with Kurtag on celesta. Kurtag clearly fuses Webern and Bartok, producing dark, rich music that is never exhausted through repeated listening.

How does this 1996 KQ/ECM recording compare to the 1990 recording by the Arditti Quartet of Kurtag's three string quartets on Montaigne, supervised by Kurtag? (see my review) The KQ takes the tempos slightly slower, and this produces a suitably dramatic effect. The tempo difference is likely one chief cause of the difference in affect -- the AQ sounds more anguished overall, whereas the KQ is slightly more restrained, more stoic. Of course the KQ is treated to Manfred Eicher's patented production, with its noticeable resonance, and this produces a darker tone, it seems. The Montaigne production of the AQ is more natural, with a clean, clear surface. The KQ adds three short Kurtag pieces for an all-Kurtag set, while the AQ adds Lutoslawski's 25-minute quartet (his only one), and the 10-minute Second Quartet by Gubaidulina. ECM's graphics and packaging are stunning, as usual, with black-and-white photography.

It is fascinating to hear the alternative interpretations, and Kurtag's works certainly warrant more! But if you hear only one, the Keller Quartet's recording is outstanding.

This music reflects a dark aesthetic,Kurtag moved to Switzerland but acquired Hungarian citizenship. He studied in Messiaen's famous class on analysis in the late Fifties,one of the first Hungarians to do so.He felt he had a language inside him, one of musical focus and contraction until he heard the music of Ligeti and Stockhausen's "Gruppen" for three orchestras. His music however is steeped in the European sensibility for structure and a profound dimension without the pretencious accoutrements that usually attach to that worldview. He writes for strings like they are his Mother tongue,like his own children's voices.Here in "Aus der Ferne III" are sparse,exposed, understated statements in the first violin.The genre of the string quartet has always been reserved for introspection,for a private moment,nothing social, or abundant. The "12 Microludes" requires a structural refinement of the imagination,and push the lever of this time-honed genre. If preludes are one idea pieces, then microludes are in the negative realm,left of the number one integer. The plan is,should be extreme contrast, nothing, no musical moment should give itself toward structural cohesion from piece to piece. But here Kurtag's music betrays him, there is coherance at times. The economy of means here is always a player, an element in his music. Kurtag understands the diamond shaped fragments of Anton Webern. But oddly Kurtag seems to be more social in his miniature pronouncements,more with an affinity for some leftover human dialogue as from a coffee bar,as if one is still necessary in order for music to preserve itself.It is a music not of exile,as many might believe,but one of an engaged aesthetic commenting on the human condition,even if a private,self-referential one. The Keller Quartett deploy themselves admirably,they have committment to their playing,impassioned yet tempered by the understatements of this music,not afraid of exposing their emotional constitution,unlike Arditti where such indulgences are frowned upon.

I heard the Boston Symphony play an orchestral piece of Kurtag's several years ago. I was impressed by the piece, and frankly have no idea why it took me so long to purchase this CD. There are a great many noteworthy string quartets of the last hundred years, and Kurtag's in some ways are the most unusual. While formidable technique and discipline are required to play them, the overall effect is not highly virtuosic, as you might remark about say, Bartok. The overall effect is more darkly contemplative, although there are certainly moments of great drama. Harmonically, they're quite wonderful, with much of the harmony in very low registers. The sparseness of the writing may bring Webern to mind, but the resemblance is only superficial. Kurtag speaks with his own distinct voice.
The reading by the Keller Quartet is excellent. It is both restrained and emotional. The quality of the recording is excellent, as one would expect from ECM.

The Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag (born 1926) famously bloomed late. After following the Communist party line in the 1950s, a trip to Paris at the end of that decade, where he encountered the international avant-garde and the psychologist Marianne Stein, made him repudiate everything he had written before. A series of remarkable works followed, but it wasn't under the early 1980s that he reached international attention.

Because Kurtag's opus number one was a String Quartet, this and his other string quartets are typical introductions to his music. These were my first encounter with Gyorgy Kurtag, and I liked what I heard very much, enough to go on to acquire quite a collection of his music. He is a composer whose works are as compressed as Webern's, but while Webern's tend to seem crystalline and smooth, Kurtag's string quartets are shadowy, pitted, and mysterious, like vaguely Bartok's nocturnal world. If you've never heard these before, just imagine Ligeti's second string quartet under enormous pressure.

The "Quartetto per archi" op. 1 (1959) was consists of six very short movements in arch structure, with the first serving as a spooky introduction to the quartet's harmonic soundworld and the sixth as epilogue, and the second and fifth both containing ostinatos. The middle two movements, with their references to Beethoven and Bartok, give a brief traditional shine. In the The Matchstick Man documentary, Kurtag explains that he sought a new music like the collection of odds and ends strewn around a workroom, and this seeking for historical synthesis is very evident.

Things get even briefer with Kurtag's next two string quartets. "Hommage a Mihaly Andras" (1977-78) is a set of twelve "microludes", the shortest of which is but twelve seconds long. It explores many genres, from chorales to folk-song melodies to even totally-serious jingles. "Officium breve in memoriam Andreae Szervánszky" (1988-89) continues this same exploration of many styles, but has a much more coherent dramatic curve. Appropriate for a work in memory of the composer who introduced Webern to Hungary, the piece contains quotations from Webern.

The disc is filled out by two other works for strings. "Aus der Ferne III" for string quartet was written for the 90th birthday of the music publisher Alfred Schlee. It seems a fairly minor work--indeed, it lacks an opus number--but its violins and viola moving expressively over a continual plucked C ("like a kettledrum") is entertaining enough. "Ligatura - Message to Frances-Marie" op. 31b for two cellos, two violins and celesta (1989) is quite unusual. It has a cello with two bows used simultaneously and the violins are distantly placed, and the celesta only enters in the last two measures (here it is played by Kurtag himself). The music consists of eerie pulsations quite different from much of Kurtag's writing.

The performances here are fine. The Keller Quartet has worked closely with Kurtag, and he is an infamously demanding teacher who insists on total perfection in perfomances of his music. Nonetheless, unless you are a Kurtag completist, I'd recommend hearing the string quartets performed by the Arditti Quartet on a Naive/Montaigne disc that also contains stunning quartets by Lutoslawski and Gubaidulina. That disc lacks "Aus der Ferne" and "Ligatura", but the material contributed by the other composers more than makes up for it, and the Ardittis have also worked closely with Kurtag. Nonetheless, if the Arditti disc isn't available to you (many of those Naive reissues are now rare), you can get this ECM disc with confidence.

19th-century composers preferred the term "Tondichter" - or tone poet - for their craft. It's hard to think of too many other contemporary composers who more deserve that title than György Kurtag. These works for string quartet grow out of the idioms of Bartok and Webern, but achieve a unique poetic balance between sound and silence, light and dark, that eclipses just about any other composer currently working. This is by no means "easy listening," nor does it have the sardonic playfulness of, say, Ligeti. But if you're looking for music that explores musical space for all its dark emotional corners, Kurtag's work is perfect. The Keller Quartet gives these works distinctive, sensitive readings, and the recording captures the sounds in a velvety acoustic.

György Kurtág could hardly be better represented than on this terrific recording from ECM, MUSIK FOR STREICHINSTRUMENTE. For those who have not come under the spell of this formidable talent, is Romanian born composer traveled to Paris after the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 and there his studies with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud along with his falling under the influence of Anton Webern and his long friendship with György Ligeti, he discovered his voice in contemporary music. In 1959 he marked his String Quartet as his official Opus 1 and on this survey recording this hauntingly beautiful piece is among the selections curated and performed by the Keller Quartet.

Kurtág's music is never less than surprising, even in repeated hearings. His uses of silence or pauses accentuate the emotion that his biting outbursts of angular and at times stringent sounds produce. 'Understanding' this work is less an appropriate process then simply experiencing it. The complexities that arise are equally matched by unique use of the bow on the strings, the pizzicato sections that disrupt the gliding glissandos of sound he asks from his players. In this selection are both versions of the abruptly brief but intoxicatingly explorative sound - Ligatura, Message To Frances-Marie (The Answered Unanswered Question) Op 31 a and b. The listener may feel prepared for the similarities and differences in these two modes, but the excitement of what Kurtág does is always so fresh as to make each experience with them like the first.

The Keller Quartet performs with precision and passion, obviously in harmony with the thoughts between the notes of each of these experiments in sound. This is as fine an introduction to the music of Kurtág as exists at the present time. Grady Harp, June 10

This is a relatively significant release, surveying Kurtag's music for string quartet from the fragmented expressionism of his op.1 string quartet of 1959 to the concentrated, almost Webern-like sound world of his more recent music. Throughout the Keller quartet plays with absolute commitment and what sounds to me like technical perfection (I have not heard the alternative recording of several of these works by the Ardittis, I have to admit). The sound quality is also of the highest standard, as expected from ECM.

The earlyish string quartet already mentioned is a masterly work, though not perhaps as individual in its sound-world as the Microludes from the early seventies - in the latter, the processes of aphoristic, small, individual forms linked together in a discursive whole that we associate with the composer have been perfected. This is intensely captivating music - again, Webern is an obvious influence, but the composer is clearly inspired by the soundworld of Bartok as well; indeed, I'd be more than willing to place this one among the real, great masterpieces composed the last forty years. The Officium breve is a questioning, exploratory (and again immensely rewarding) work where much though and work has gone into the rich and variegated textures.

I am a little less sure about the most recent works, Ligatura and Aus der Ferne, but I am perfectly willing to concede that the problem is probably mine. In any case, this is a striking release of important music from one of the most important and individual voices of the contemporary musical world; it is by no means easy music, but immensely rewarding, and the disc is overall very strongly recommended.

This music is made of the material of which human beings should be made of. Fortunately there is still place on earth to find a true breakingthrough musician making its most valuable effort when facing the task of building a piece of himself a piece of art. This music comes from the very tradicional verve of east european classical music but offers a truly new view of it. No folclore is found in it, no political stance, no revolutionary insight view of society or people. This music addresses the inner core of all human beings unable to takle with the questions of life. Those without answers. This music is timeless and motionless in its unique sense of eternity, which somehow comes to mime quite precisely the concept of an instant. However, great effort in this music that, with a similar approach to reality, comes very far of standard impresionism.

Kurtag's "Quartetto per archi" (op. 1), composed in 1959, is particularly striking and opens an entirely new area in music.