György Kurtág: celebrations for his 100th birthday
Budapest plays host to an extensive festival feature for György Kurtág whose 100th birthday is celebrated on 19 February, including the world premiere of his new one-act monodrama Die Stechardin. Centenary events in the UK include a Birmingham collaboration between CBSO and BCMG and a London concert by Víkingur Ólafsson and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Modern master György Kurtág reaches the remarkable milestone of 100 years on 19 February and this month brings an extensive celebration of his music in Budapest with a host of organisations collaborating, including the Budapest Music Centre, the Müpa concert hall and the Liszt Academy. As well as concerts, the two-week series includes the premiere of a new documentary film about the composer by Dénes Nagy, an exhibition, a lecture series, and a musicological conference day. A host of leading Hungarian interpreters of Kurtág’s music is joined at the festival by international luminaries who have championed his works including pianists Pierre Laurent Aimard and Víkingur Ólafsson, baritone Benjamin Appl, cellist Steven Isserlis and conductor Markus Stenz.
The birthday itself brings a concert with Víkingur Ólafsson as soloist in …quasi una fantasia…, Op. 27, No. 1 and in a selection of chamber works with piano. The following day presents the much-anticipated world premiere of Kurtág’s new single-act opera Die Stechardin. Composed between 2023 and 2025, this one-act monodrama for solo soprano and orchestra sensitively explores the relationship between German writer and polymath Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799) and the teenage flower girl Maria Dorothea Stechard who became his soul partner. This love was thwarted by Dorothea’s untimely death at 17 and the monodrama sets texts by Christoph Hein combining memories and messages as the couple seek to communicate and find peace beyond the grave. The subject matter is clearly personal for the composer who lost his beloved wife Márta, in 2019, who was his companion and musical partner for 72 years.
Festival repertoire across the 13 concerts also embraces Kurtág’s inimitable chamber music and acclaimed vocal and choral cycles, with the composer’s works programmed alongside those of his close predecessors – Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven, Bartók, and Ligeti. A number of related events are also planned outside of Budapest, in Gyor, Szombathely, Pécs and Szeged.
> Visit Budapest’s Kurtág 100 website
Birmingham’s CBSO Centre is the venue for an all-Kurtág birthday celebration on 12 February, combining the musicians of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Selections from Signs, Games and Messages are performed alongside pieces from his celebrated Games (Játékok) series for piano. The event is compered by musicologist Paul Griffiths, highlighting elements of the music and providing insights into the composer’s life.
Víkingur Ólafsson travels to London on 5 March for a Kurtág centenary programme presented by the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Southbank Centre under the baton of Elena Schwarz. As well as being soloist in the piano and orchestra work …quasi una fantasia…, Ólafsson is joined on the platform by cellist István Várdai for Kurtág’s Double Concerto. This rare presentation of both of the composer’s extraordinary op.27 scores on the same programme displays Kurtág’s unique approach to the splintering of instrumental sound and spatial deployment of the players. Chamber works include interconnected music by Kurtág, Bach and Schumann, together with Mark Simpson’s Hommage à Kurtág for clarinet, viola and piano.
> Kurtág concert in Birmingham
> Kurtág concert in London
Works by Kurtág are published by Universal Music Publishing/Editio Musica Budapest and represented for rental by Boosey & Hawkes in the UK, British Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland, and North America. For further information about Kurtág’s works, please visit the Editio Musica Budapest website.