Kurtag: Jatekok / Marta and Gyorgy Kurtag

Gyorgy Kurtag (Composer), Johann Sebastian Bach (Composer, Performer), György Kurtág (Performer), Marta Kurtag (Performer), Marta Kurtag (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Johann Sebastian Bach, György Kurtág, Marta Kurtag
• Composer: Gyorgy Kurtag, Johann Sebastian Bach
• Audio CD (March 7, 2000)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B0000266O8
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,430 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #1 in Music > World Music > Europe > Eastern Europe > Hungary
  • #27 in Music > Classical > Instruments > Keyboard > Organ
  • #50 in Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Classical (c.1770-1830) > Vocal & Song > Cantatas

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available.
Genre: Classical Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 7-MAR-2000

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jewel-like modernist piano music, December 10, 2002

By 

peter-from-la (Los Angeles and Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kurtag: Jatekok / Marta and Gyorgy Kurtag (Audio CD)

This is one of my favorite piano music recordings. Kurtag's piano pieces, each dedicated to a friend or hero, are like miniature musical portraits composed by a master artist. They are tiny, intricate, and gestural. His music tends toward the aphoristic, saying a lot with very few notes. Some pieces are less than a minute long. And yet they have the feel of the eternal about them. The sound is beautiful.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary music superbly played, March 3, 2002

By 

Andrew Hingston (Saint Helena, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kurtag: Jatekok / Marta and Gyorgy Kurtag (Audio CD)

This is one of the finest CDs of contemporary piano music I have ever heard. The music is spare, fragmented, and frequently "empty" -- not empty of content, but empty in the way the Grand Canyon is empty. Not knowing very much about Zen I will still venture to say that Kurtag's music has Zen-like qualities of intense concentration, absence of ornamentation for it own sake, quietude, rigorousness, micro- and macro-scopic examination of its subject, seriousness offset with moments of whimsy, and even, though how I know this I don't know, morality. Not prudery, but real morality. This is music that grapples, as much as music ever can, with the Big Problems. Death, love, loyalty and rememberance are frequent themes. There is a deeply religious, almost monastic, quality to much of the music. It is therefore perfectly fitting that the recording is held up by four columns -- four transcriptions of Bach chorales, at least two of which are among the finest transcriptions of these much transcribed works as I have ever heard (easily in a class with Busoni, Kempff and Hess). For Bach lovers alone this is a great recording to have. Ditto for lovers of contemporary music. For Bach lovers who also love contemporary music, this is an essential recording -- not to be missed. Outstanding in every respect.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Játékok (Games): A Well Named Collection, September 22, 2010

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kurtag: Jatekok / Marta and Gyorgy Kurtag (Audio CD)

György Kurtág keeps us guessing and entertained with his ingenious thoughts about music in our time. This marvelous CD is devoted to his piano music and both the composer and his wife Marta Kurtág perform these very brief encounters with sound in a manner in which they are aptly called 'Games'. Among the sequences are brief homages to Stravinsky, Scarlatti, Ligeti, Farkas Ferenc as well as moments of variations on Bach chorales. The placement of these pieces is well conceived: there are I believe 8 books of these 'Games' and in some ways they are similar to Béla Bartók's 'Mikrokosmos', except instead of leading the pianist (and listener) through pieces requiring progressive virtuosity, they instead must lead the player's ear through more and more advanced manipulation of sounds and silences.

Some of the pieces are a matter of a few notes, others hammer the keyboard in percussive strokes, some pieces are homages to Marta and are played by the dedicatee alone. Just when the listener thinks there can not more creativity available from Kurtág he and his wife break into another immaculate transcription of Bach to let the palette settle. This is a satisfying program in every way. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, September 10