This Week in Classical Music: February 17, 2025.Handel and Kurtág.The great was born on February 23rd of 1685.In one year, between 1724 and 1725, while Handel was the “Master of the orchestra” at the Royal Academy of Music in London, he created three very successful operas, Rodelinda, Giulio Cesare, and Tamerlano.Each of these operas had his favorite singers in leading roles: the castrato Senesino, and the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni.The aria Dove sei, amato bene? (Where are you, my dear?), from Act I of Rodelinda was written for Senesino and is performed here by the wonderful countertenor Andreas Scholl. The supporting Accademia Bizantina is led by Ottavio Dantone.
Last week we celebrated the 98th birthday of Leontyne Price; this week it’s György Kurtág’s turn: in two days he will be 99!György Kurtág (his first name is pronounced closer to Dyerd rather than George) was born on February 19th of 1926 in Lugoj, Banat.Most of the historical Banat now belongs to Romania, but before the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, Banat was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the majority of its inhabitants were Hungarian speakers.It also had a large Jewish population; Kurtág himself is half-Jewish.He spoke Hungarian at home and Romanian at school.As a child, he studied the piano on and off, first with his mother and then with professional teachers.After WWII, in 1946, the 20-year-old Kurtág moved to Budapest and continued taking piano lessons, eventually entering the Franz Liszt Music Academy.There he met György Ligetiand they became friends for life (Ligeti, who died in 2006, was also of Hungarian-Jewish descent, and also born in a part of Austria-Hungary that now lies in Romania; he rivals Kurtág as one of the most important classical composers of the second half of the 20th century).After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Kurtág moved to Paris.There he studied with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud.He returned to Hungary in 1959 and stayed there for the duration of the Communist regime – the only Hungarian composer of international renown to do so (Ligeti, for example, fled to Vienna right after the failed revolution and stayed in the West for the rest of his life). At that time Kurtág became influential as a teacher.Surprisingly, he didn’t teach composition but rather interpretation: pianists Zoltán Kocsis and András Schiff, and the first Takács String Quartet were among his pupils. Kurtág resumed traveling only after the fall of communism in 1989, moving first to Berlin (he was the composer in residence for the Berlin Philharmonic in the mid-90s), then Vienna, the Netherlands and Paris, where he worked with Boulez’s Ensemble Intercontemporain.In 2002, the Kurtágs settled in Bordeaux but in 2015 he and his wife returned to Budapest (Kurtág’s wife Márta, a pianist, died in 2019).
Last week, when we played Luigi Nono’s Con Luigi Dallapiccola, we marveled at how a piece of interesting music could be created by limited means, in Nono’s case, an ensemble of percussion instruments.Here is another example, a piece by Kurtág titled...quasi una fantasia... (Kurtág likes ellipses in his titles).It was written in 1988.Very different from Nono’s, it is also very economical in how Kurtág uses different instruments.The piano, for example, works more as a percussion, rather than the Romantic instrument capable of creating a wall of sound.In this recording, Bahar Dördüncü is the pianist.We don’t know the name of the ensemble.
We should mention Arcangello Corelli, who was born on this day in 1653.And Luigi Boccherini was also born this week, on February 19th of 1743.
Handel and Kurtág
This Week in Classical Music: February 17, 2025. Handel and Kurtág. The great
was born on February 23rd of 1685. In one year, between 1724 and 1725, while Handel was the “Master of the orchestra” at the Royal Academy of Music in London, he created three very successful operas, Rodelinda, Giulio Cesare, and Tamerlano. Each of these operas had his favorite singers in leading roles: the castrato Senesino, and the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni. The aria Dove sei, amato bene? (Where are you, my dear?), from Act I of Rodelinda was written for Senesino and is performed here by the wonderful countertenor Andreas Scholl. The supporting Accademia Bizantina is led by Ottavio Dantone.
Last week we celebrated the 98th birthday of Leontyne Price; this week it’s György Kurtág’s turn: in two days he will be 99! György Kurtág (his first name is pronounced closer to Dyerd rather than George) was born on February 19th of 1926 in Lugoj, Banat. Most of the historical Banat now belongs to Romania, but before the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, Banat was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the majority of its inhabitants were Hungarian speakers. It also had a large Jewish population; Kurtág himself is half-Jewish. He spoke Hungarian at home and Romanian at school. As a child, he studied the piano on and off, first with his mother and then with professional teachers. After WWII, in 1946, the 20-year-old Kurtág moved to Budapest and continued taking piano lessons, eventually entering the Franz Liszt Music Academy. There he met György Ligeti and they became friends for life (Ligeti, who died in 2006, was also of Hungarian-Jewish descent, and also born in a part of Austria-Hungary that now lies in Romania; he rivals Kurtág as one of the most important classical composers of the second half of the 20th century). After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Kurtág moved to Paris. There he studied with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud. He returned to Hungary in 1959 and stayed there for the duration of the Communist regime – the only Hungarian composer of international renown to do so (Ligeti, for example, fled to Vienna right after the failed revolution and stayed in the West for the rest of his life). At that time Kurtág became influential as a teacher. Surprisingly, he didn’t teach composition but rather interpretation: pianists Zoltán Kocsis and András Schiff, and the first Takács String Quartet were among his pupils. Kurtág resumed traveling only after the fall of communism in 1989, moving first to Berlin (he was the composer in residence for the Berlin Philharmonic in the mid-90s), then Vienna, the Netherlands and Paris, where he worked with Boulez’s Ensemble Intercontemporain. In 2002, the Kurtágs settled in Bordeaux but in 2015 he and his wife returned to Budapest (Kurtág’s wife Márta, a pianist, died in 2019).
Last week, when we played Luigi Nono’s Con Luigi Dallapiccola, we marveled at how a piece of interesting music could be created by limited means, in Nono’s case, an ensemble of percussion instruments. Here is another example, a piece by Kurtág titled...quasi una fantasia... (Kurtág likes ellipses in his titles). It was written in 1988. Very different from Nono’s, it is also very economical in how Kurtág uses different instruments. The piano, for example, works more as a percussion, rather than the Romantic instrument capable of creating a wall of sound. In this recording, Bahar Dördüncü is the pianist. We don’t know the name of the ensemble.
We should mention Arcangello Corelli, who was born on this day in 1653. And Luigi Boccherini was also born this week, on February 19th of 1743.