Customer Reviews

Portrait Concert: Works from 1961-1992

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Kurtag is certainly one of this century's greatest composers, and the selection of works here is well-chosen, spanning most of his career, from his Op. 1, first string quartet, written when he was in his forties, to works of recent years. The pieces are generally well-performed and comparable to those on other discs. Adrienne Csengery seems particularly well-suited to Kurtag's emotonally unstable style, and the Keller Quartet work well. Kurtag fans will also be delighted to have pieces such as Samuel Beckett: What is the Word and In Memorian Stephan Stein on CD, two excellent works. However, the recorded sound and atmosphere is disappointing. The miking seems removed from the performers, distancing the entire experience, to which the greater-than-average amount of audience noise also contributes. Additionally, other pieces, such as the selections from Jatekok, and the aforementioned first string quartet, are available on other CDs, there better-performed and packaged. With the exception of What is the Word, printed in its originally language and a translaition to German, the liner notes and words to vocal works are not in english, frustrating when a sizable portion of the disc is poetry set to music. Caveats aside, the strength of the writing and sometimes-breathtaking performances come through and this disc does offer a well-rounded introduction to Kurtag's career, a reasonable place to start for a new-comer.

This Collegno disc is a recording of a 1993 concert in celebration of the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag. Some of Hungary's greatest musicians were at hand, such as conductor Peter Eotvos, pianist Zoltan Kocsis, soprano Adrienne Csengery and the Keller Quartet. This "portrait concert" contains a couple of pieces unavailable elsewhere, while this is the only place to hear other pieces performed by this particular Kurtag collaborators. However, the sound quality is not too great, this sounding more like a radio recording passed around between friends than a commercial release.

Zoltan Kocsis starts things off with a few of Kurtag's lovely "Jatekok" piano miniatures. The Keller Quartet then performs four of the twelve movements of "Hommage a András Mihaly" op. 13 (1978), a wonderful piece which explores many genres, from chorales to folk-song melodies to even totally-serious jingles, in extreme compression (the shortest movement is only 12 seconds long). Several quartets have taken up Kurtag's work for the genre, but you can hear a studio recording of the Keller Quartet on an ECM disc.

"Grabstein fuer Stephan" for guitar and ensemble (1978-79, rev. 1989) spreads its instruments around the performance space, but the piece is still effective in stereo recording. It is the most stripped down piece I've ever heard from the composer. For most of its 9-minute length a guitar plays ascending scales at very low dynamic with the slightest of accompaniment by strings at even lower dynamics. Only at the midpoint do we get a few sad calls from the brass, before the music returns to the guitar and strings. There are other, better quality recordings of it on a Deutsche Grammophon disc, where Claudio Abbado leads the Berliner Philharmonik, and a BMG Ricordi disc featuring the Sinfonica di Milano cond. Zoltan Pesko, though all have Jurgen Ruck as soloist.

There are two works for soprano and piano. "Requiem for a friend" op. 26 (1982-87) is a series of four powerful songs on poems by Rimma Dalos. "Harom regi felirat" op. 25 (1986-87) sets three archaic Hungarian inscriptions. Kurtag's compositional skill is especially highlighted by the fact that, while I generally dislike lieder even from my favourite composers like Norgard, I am utterly transfixed by these two little works. Kurtag's lieder are not simple, innocent pieces that just show off the singer, but they mix the sweetest tones with knotty complexity and a virtuoso piano part, as in the powerful second movement of "Harom regi felirat".

"...quasi una fantasia..." op. 27 no. 1 for piano and ensemble (1987-88) is a four-movement commentary on the entire history of the piano concerto, compressed into just 10 minutes. There are several recordings, but the best is another performance led by Peter Eotvos with the Ensemble Modern Sony disc that is a studio recording, though that is unfortunately long out of print.

The Double Concerto op. 27 no. 2 (1989-90) is written for two spatially divided ensembles with cello and piano solo respectively. Out of all the pieces here, I think this suffers the most from the live recording nature of the disc, as well as the stereo limitations. Would that this were available on SACD. Still, what we can hear here is entertaining. There's a Schnittke-esque moment where the orchestra suddenly strikes up a zany march that subsides almost as soon as it appears. At the end, the cello plays the same melody that the soprano sings in the "Requiem for a friend" movement "Farewell, my dear".

"What is the Word" op. 30b for speaker, choir and orchestra (1991) is a setting of a Beckett poem, written for the actress Ildiko Monyok who struggled to regain her ability to speak after a car crash. It is a moving experience, but I can hardly bear to listen to it here when there is an excellent sounding studio recording of this piece available on a Deutsche Grammophon disc, though that is sadly out of print.

If you are a fan of Gyorgy Kurtag, then this deserves a place in your collection. Certainly items like Double Concerto are better heard in lesser sound quality than not at all. But you'll probably go elsewhere for the pieces that are widely available in studio recording.