Release Date: 16 February 2015
Label: ECM New Series
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 044007628966
Genres: Classical Chamber Music
Description
Subtitled 'Játékok - Games and Transcriptions for piano solo and four hands', this is a film, directed by Isabelle Soulard, of a concert given in September 2012 at Paris's Cité de la Musique by the composer György Kurtág and his wife.
The duo performances of Márta and György Kurtág have long been distinguished by flinty new music precision, matched by a quick-witted playfulness and underpinned by a quality of affection. "What playing!" raved the New Yorker's Alex Ross of a 'Játékok' concert. "Notes were placed with surgical care; inner voices gleamed in crystalline patterns; elusive emotional states were painted with quick, light strokes."
From its origins in the early 1970s as a good-humoured unsystematic approach to teaching contemporary keyboard techniques to young players (early pieces in the series included use of clusters, glissandi, harmonics, playing with palms and forearms - a wide range of gestures), 'Játékok' (Games) has developed into a compendium of epigrammatic homages, jewelled miniatures dedicated to composers from Scarlatti to Stravinsky and Christian Wolff, and tributes to colleagues and influences.
In this special case the whole programme - 40 pieces plus three encores - is dedicated to the memory of the Kurtágs' good friend, musicologist Haydée Charbagi (1979-2008). Interspersed amongst György Kurtág's pieces are his much-admired Bach transcriptions - 'Játékok' is a work that has gained strength through contrasting and cross-referencing with other music. The whole programme closes with a radiant version of Bach's 'Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit'.
Among ECM's many widely-praised recordings of Kurtág's music is a 1997 CD of 'Játékok', likewise performed by the composer and his wife. "A very special experience - as memorable and as profound as any to be had from new music today," said Gramophone.
Personnel: Marta Kurtag, Gyorgy Kurtag (piano)
Tracklisting
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica & Vida Mikneviciute
Arvo Part
Thomas Larcher
John Holloway Ensemble
Heinz Holliger & Anton Kernjak
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra & Tonu Kaljuste
Karlheinz Stockhausen Michaels Reise
Andras Schiff
Christoph Croise; Andrey Baranov; Alexander Panfilov
Trio Parnassus
Kilian Herold, Barbara Buntrock, Florian Donderer, Tanja Tetzlaff
Narratio Quartet
Beau Soir Trio
Martin Rummel, Stefan Stroissnig
Hanspeter Oggier; Marina Vasilyeva
Antje Weithaas, Denes Varjon
