Concert, music

“What does Ligeti mean to me?” asks Kurtág. “The sense that there is something higher, something more perfect than I can even imagine, that there are connections in art, science, and the universe that he can account for, and here the sentence breaks off.”

In June 2025, BBC Music Magazine selected Pierre-Laurent Aimard's album as its Recording of the Month. The album features selections from György Kurtág's cycle Játékok (Games), including the then-unreleased 11th volume. According to a critic in The Guardian, “Játékok is one of the most significant works of the past half-century, and Aimard is the perfect guide to it.”

As in Anton Webern's work, the short piece, short movement, or musical miniature in György Kurtág's oeuvre is not the result of any form of reduction. It is well known that, for neither composer, brevity refers to the duration of musical processes, but rather to the density of musical communication. The large-scale cycles composed of these dense communications – from The Sayings of Péter Bornemisza to Kafka Fragments and beyond – are particularly characteristic of Kurtág's output.

Benjamin Appl recorded songs by Schubert, Brahms, and Kurtág on his album Lines of Life, released in 2025. On the album, the composers and their works are closely intertwined in the truest sense. Listeners will not only marvel at how Kurtág's music keeps the world of 19th-century German songs alive in various ways, but will also notice that at times Schubert or Brahms seem to continue or develop phrases, motifs, or ideas from Kurtág.

Featuring: Jure Pukl - tenor saxophone, electronics John Escreet - piano Joe Sanders - bass Christian Lillinger - drums

A barokk hegedűs, Maya Homburger és zeneszerző-nagybőgős férje, Barry Guy különleges, zenetörténeti korszakokat és stílusokat átívelő koncertjein rendszeresen szólaltatnak meg Kurtág-kompozíciókat.

Violinist and conductor Peter Rundel is a welcome guest with leading European symphony orchestras.