Kurtág, György - Signs, Games and Messages - Widmer, Kurt (baritone)

---

---

Leveranstid: Skickas vanligtvis inom 2-5 dagar

---

"Now in his late seventies, the Hungarian composer György Kurtág is one of the most interesting and esteemed composers alive... Six years since his much-admired Játékok, ECM releases three of Kurtág's most concentrated works, the title track a deft, often witty string piece deploying the individual and collective skills of the Orlando Trio in a series of striking homages to Kurtág's friends and contemporaries. They're joined by the baritone Kurt Widmer for "Hölderlin Gesänge" and a haunting song cycle to Beckett poems. Between them, the three works constitute 59 tracks, only one of them more than three minutes long - minimalism par excellence."
(The Observer)

The first new album by Kurtág in six years is a major event. Kurtág was always a master of the miniature - no tone or texture, no grain of sound is wasted - but now his work is more concentrated than ever. The work on "Signs, Games and Messages" represents a pinnacle of Kurtág's art of achieving the ultimate in expression by the most minimal of means. The album is comprised of settings of Hölderlin (and Paul Celan) in the "Hölderlin-Gesänge", sung by Kurt Widmer, and of Beckett (and Sébastien Chamfort) in " ... pas à pas - nulle part ...", sung by Widmer with string trio and percussion. The two song cycles are linked by the work-in-progress that gives the album its title: "Signs, Games and Messages" for strings. The three cycles recorded here - and to which the distinguished interpreters gave years of intense collaboration - comprise between them a total of 59 tracks, only one of which goes beyond three minutes in duration. More than any composer before him, Kurtág has mastered the art of the expressive musical aphorism - or, as he self-deprecatingly puts it, "making music out of almost nothing." But as England's The Guardian said, "A whole world of expression and suggestion can be packed into these exquisite, crystalline forms."

Kurt Widmer, baritone

Orlando Trio:
Hiromi Kikuchi, violin
Ken Hakii, viola
Stefan Metz, cello

Mircea Ardeleanu, percussion
Heinrich Huber, trombone
David LeClair, tuba

Recorded February / March 2002