Kurtág 80 - First Edition
Budapest Music Center celebrated György Kurtág's 80th birthday in February 2006 with a five-day series of concerts held in the Budapest Palace of Arts and the Music Academy. Important and rarely played Kurtág works were heard, including Hipartita and Zwiegespräch, then played for the first time in Hungary.
A video and sound recording was made of the concert series, and these two CDs feature the pieces that have not yet been released on disc. BMC has made it possible for the post-production work following the concert in the studio to go further than making First Edition the customary concert documentation, and also beyond the dry sterility of regular studio recordings.
Our aim in the CD adaptation of the concert recording was not to make the listener believe he is present at the concert, but somehow through the sound also to convey the things he cannot see, because the gesture in Kurtág's music is of vital importance. With him, if we cannot see the musician, everything changes, even the proportion of the notes. That is why we have tried to find how the missing sight can be substituted with, or rather translated into sound, in such a way that a new dramaturgy, and a new experience, be created. In order to achieve this, it seemed appropriate to place the musical material in a different sounding-space, as well as using the microphones as cameras, moving in closer on the musicians, and then backing away. György Kurtág jr. - artistic and musical director of the celebratory release Kurtág 80 - First Edition.

Track Listing

• ...concertante... op. 42 I....fantasia...: Senza tempo - Sostenuto, parlando, pulsato
• ...concertante... op. 42 II....fantasia...: Vivo, agitato - Recitativo
• ...concertante... op. 42 III....fantasia...: Choral (quasi 'Trio') / Ricapitulazione
• ...concertante... op. 42 IV.Coda: Recitativo, ed...
• ...concertante... op. 42 V.Coda: ...epilogo...
• Zwiegespräch I.Introduzione / Tears
• Zwiegespräch II.Visions / Feroce / Recitativo passionato
• Zwiegespräch III.Love story / Bird Call
• Zwiegespräch IV.Shadows / Tempest - synthesizer solo / Féerie
• Zwiegespräch V.Solace

• Hipartita op. 43 I.*** (sostenuto, doloroso)
• Hipartita op. 43 II....aprés une lecture de Rimbaud... - to Anne Longuet-Marx
• Hipartita op. 43 III. όρειβασία [oreibasía] - ...hegyet hágék, lőtöt lépék...
• Hipartita op. 43 IV.In Memoriam György Gonda
• Hipartita op. 43 V. Ήρακλείτος ...θυμώ μάχεσθαι... [Hérákleitos: thumôi máchesthai] - Heraclit: It is hard to fight with desires
• Hipartita op. 43 VI.Teneramente
• Hipartita op. 43 VII....perpetuum mobile...
• Hipartita op. 43 VIII.Heimweh - Hommage á Eötvös Péter
• Canon at the lower fifth (Mikrokosmos Book I)
• Das alte Jahr vergangen ist, BWV 614 - Hommage á Reinbert de Leeuw
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Consolation sereine - to Renee Jonker
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Versetto (Apocryphal Organum)
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Knots
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Antiphony in F-sharp
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - An apocryphal hymn (In the style of Alfred Schnittke) - to Judit Frigyesi
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - In Memoriam András Mihály
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Gott, durch deine Güte, BWV 600 - to Tamás Várkonyi
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Dirge
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Melody (1947)
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Fugitive thoughts about the Alberti bass - to András Szőllősy
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Hommage á M. K.
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Merran's dream - Caliban detecting-rebuilding Mirranda's dream
• Excerpts from játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Study to Pilinszky's Hörderlin
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit: Sonatina, BWV 106 (Actus tragicus)
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Study to Pilinszky's Hölderlin
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Das alte Jahr vergangen ist, BWV 614 - Hommage á Reinbert de Leeuw
• Excerpts from Játékok (Games) and transcriptions - Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit: Sonatina, BWV 106 (Actus tragicus)

Additional Details

Label: BMC Records

Genre: Classical

Run Time: 104 mins

Release Date: 08/28/07

UPC: 5998309301292