All music can be good - György Kurtág is 80 years old
“I’ve only been able to compose at times when I was on good terms with myself and I could accept myself – when I found a kind of ideological unity.” György Kurtág
Composer, pianist György Kurtág is perhaps the best known individual in modern Hungarian music. He and his wife Márta Kurtág have given a host of unforgettable concerts in the world’s most famous music venues. The programme of the fifty-minute performance has been unchanged since 1988: apart from the transcripts, all pieces are from the collection Games that Kurtág says can be played by quite small children and virtuosi as well. “The essence of interpretation is that something must be played this way or that way,” the composer says.
Kurtág had his first piano lessons as a small child and started learning composition at the age of fourteen. He graduated from the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest then continued his studies in Paris. With a scholarship from the Deutsche Akademischer Austauschdienst he spent a year in Berlin in 1971; he has been elected as a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 1993 he was invited to to the Berlin Philharmonics for two years. In 1995 Wiener Konzerthaus called him to run a master course. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Hague Royal Conservatoire in 1996, which led him to work as a guest with Dutch orchestras and ensembles for two years.
Kurtág, friendly and modest, has always been curious and eager for new experiences. He wants to learn everything, he would like to know about everything and he tries everything. He strives to find the new, the interesting and the unique all the time. At the same time, he goes back to the classics for inspiration for the never-heard melodies that are so characteristic of him.
He has had several periods in his life when he was not able to compose for months or even for years. He calls these periods “paralysed ones”, but during these times, György Kurtág was teaching, travelling and playing the piano. He has lived in Paris, Berlin and Budapest where he immersed himself in different areas of the arts with the same passion and curiosity as in music. In his works he likes large contrasts, overwhelming experiences that have complex effects and impulsive sounds.
György Kurtág says he had a definite plan for only two works in his lifetime: one of them is the Twenty-Four Antiphonies that he started on in Berlin and he eventually completed in three versions, while the other one is the first movement of his Piano Concerto. Composing for Kurtág means that the work builds up by itself, deciding where to stop or progress. Sometimes pieces that he has put aside for years unexpectedly “get going” and other works that started off quite fluently suddenly lose their flow.
What kind of music does György Kurtág consider to be good? “All music is good from which personal commitment can be felt. Whether it be operetta or Jimi Hendrix…”
The artist, who is just at home in Paris, Berlin or the Hague as in Budapest, celebrated his eightieth birthday on February 19, 2006. For the occasion a gala concert will be given as part of the Budapest Spring Festival on March 19.
