Four Kurtag events straddled a long half day at South
Bank Centre to inaugurate the second part of Hungarian Spring, in association
with the Hungarian Cultural Centre, which had featured his equally eminent
compatriot Peter
Eotvos for its opening at St Paul's Covent Garden, that failing
to attract media attention elsewhere. Partly on account of his fame
as a demanding but well-loved teacher, György Kurtag is
being celebrated in London with an extensive retrospective Festival,
with his compositions spread thinly and divided between South Bank and
the Royal Academy of Music, where he is installed as Composer in Residence
for the duration.
The last was best, so shall be first. Messages of
the Late Miss R.V. Troussova, one of Kurtag's most substantial and
successful works, was revived to spell binding effect by Claron McFadden
and London Sinfonietta, steered by Markus Stenz to the composer's evident
satisfaction. The 21 songs take 25 mins, start short and get progressively
shorter, the last of three sections a sequence of minuscule but powerful
aphorisms, requiring virtuoso singing and emotional expressivity with
instantaneous mood changes. Ms McFadden equalled memories of the work's
creator, Kurtag's regular vocal interpreter, Adrienne Csengery (hear
her with Boulez and Ensemble InterContemperain on Erato
2292-45410-2). In QEH the detailed subtleties of the orchestration
amply justified each musician's place in the intricate jewel-like mechanism,
and it quickly drove away residual traces of a dull first half; Stockhausen's
allegedly seminal totally-serial Kontrapunctus, sounds without
meaning for this listener, and Nono's portentous Ommaggio a György
Kurtag (1986 version) with complex electronic transformations of
slow and seemingly simple music for contralto and three instrumentalists.
By contrast with the Troussova Messages, during
the afternoon an indulgently augmented Endymion Ensemble (with four
Pigini accordions, two harmoniums, 6 percussionists and what not else)
accompanied a full quorum of the BBC Singers to surprisingly little
colouristic effect in Kurtag's settings of less than jolly Songs
of Despair and Sorrow; there can never be many opportunities to
hear these in live, professional performances. Far more rewarding were
some of Bartok's insufficiently familiar Hungarian Folksongs
and Kodaly's Matra pictures, which preceded the Kurtag item,
'orchestrated' to great effect by the singers on their own in accounts
that were lovingly shaped by David Jones; the 20.C choral repertoire
thrives in a largely separate world, similar to that for the organ.
Those events were separated by a children's show, of
a sort that the UK new music establishment puts on with great seriousness,
contrasting with some more imaginative displays seen elsewhere. Well-disciplined
small persons deployed pianos and percussion, their 'compositions' announced
by their project leader to have been 'inspired by György Kurtag',
the performances abetted by three patient London Sinfonietta musicians.
The kids were subjected to inordinate reinforcement and over-praise
for minimal achievement. For parents supporting their children within
the Lambeth primary school itself this would be fine, but there is a
risk (or should it be a hope?) that for some of them, these South Bank
Centre premieres will feature in future composers CVs! There were no
press tickets available to cover the source of their inspiration, Kurtag's
Jatekok books for one or two pianists, but it was easy to recall
from previous occasions the marital tenderness which Mr & Mrs Kurtag
bring to their cross-handed intimacies, and these fruitful instruction
pieces are available for piano teachers and for all to enjoy in their
definitive account of a selection of them on ECM
453 511-2.
Peter Grahame Woolf
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