Kurtág: Játékok, Volume VII, for Piano [Excerpts]

By Erik Petersons on May 19, 2017.

As the composer and his contemporaries are aging it is striking to observe the peculiar direction that the collection takes, with an increasing number of pieces referring specifically to loss. To Johnson, “The very fact that Kurtág has chosen this ‘compositional sketchbook’ of ‘children’s pieces’ as the initial creative forum for his grief at the loss of a dear friend is extremely telling.” 205 In fact, Varga had already observed in an interview with the composer that the processional characteristic of several of Kurtág’s works, moving at slow pace, could be constructed as a funeral march.206 Thus, having in mind the beginnings of Játékok as a collection for children, full of inventiveness and fine humor, this transformation is for me one of its most fascinating aspects, still deserving a more extensive study. The list of pieces included in the present discussion strives to bring more light to this aspect of Játékok, but is not meant to be definitive. The examples appearing in this chapter are just a selection in order to achieve a better understanding of the composer’s late style, though it is impossible to discuss all its nuances and manifestations within the limits of this document.

—Gabriel Neves Coelho, Kurtág's Játékok: Playing Games with Tradition, 2014

This work was performed on the first concert of PCMS' Departure & Discovery Project at the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater.