Gyorgy Kurtag: Kafka-Fragmente

 

 

Create your own review

This is the third recording of Kurtag's 'Kafka Fragments' to have appeared on disc. Like the first Hungaroton recording the violinist is Andras Keller, the musician with whom Kurtag worked very closely whilst composing the piece. For that reason alone, and for the fact that the composer was present at this new recording, makes it instantly recommendable. Keller is an artist with exacting standards comparable to one of the world's most original musical thinkers. The soprano here is Juliane Banse, and not Csengery who made the original recording with Keller. It's extremely interesting to hear this soprano in this role and her performance does not disappoint; far from it, she carries the erudite and complex sound world to unexpected heights. That is not to say that the Hungaroton recording should be dismissed; both CDs are recommended for this sublime masterwork. That leaves the recording issued on Ondine which, for me, was largely cold and uninspired. For music of this intimacy the performance must be absolute and committed. Certainly in this ECM recording those qualities are in abundance.

KAFKA-FRAGMENTE is 40 very short pieces for soprano and violin, a cycle of a little less than an hour -- here performed by the German soprano Juliane Banse and the Hungarian violinist Andras Keller. Kurtag is well-known for saying his music is made out of almost nothing. KAFKA-FRAGMENTE is certainly a case in point -- just a voice and a violin above the abyss, a few essential things, conveying much with little. An incredible creation -- powerful existentialism. The liner notes are quite informative and include all the lyrics. Kafka was Jewish, like Kurtag. He lived in Prague. Kafka's concerns were spiritual, theological, and quotidian -- he had more doubts than certainty, but was a seeker.

Musically, the closest parallel clearly seems to be PIERROT LUNAIRE, though Kurtag's single biggest musical influence is Webern. I find it strangely compelling. It is certainly one of Kurtag's masterpieces, and in fact I would say it is a masterpiece of the late 20th century. While there is some variation, overall the mood is full of angst and hints of tragedy. The atonal music does not convey the depth and range of emotion attributed to the work by some writers.

Here are some sample lyrics (it's sung in German, but ECM's excellent 46-page booklet provides English translations):

"Slept, woke, slept, woke, miserable life"

"The true path goes by way of a rope that is suspended not high up, but rather just above the ground. Its purpose seems to be more to make one stumble than to be walked on."

"There is a destination, but no path to it; what we call a path is hesitation."

"The moonlit night dazzled us. Birds shrieked in the trees. There was a rush of wind in the fields. We crawled through the dust, a pair of snakes."

"On the stock of Balzac's walking-stick: 'I surmount all obstacles.' On mine: 'All obstacles surmount me.' They have that 'all' in common."

This was the third of what are now four recordings of KAFKA-FRAGMENTE, which was written in 1985-6. The first, recorded for the Hungaroton label, featured Adrienne Csengery and Andras Keller on violin. The second recording was by the Finnish Ondine label, featuring the young Finnish couple Anu Komsi, soprano, and Sakari Oramo on violin. The recording, in August 1995, was the only one of the four to date not supervised by the composer. This third recording by ECM took place ten years later in September 2005, and was released to celebrate the composer's 80th birthday in 2006. Most recently the cycle has been recorded as a 2009 CD/DVD combination for Bridge records. The Bridge recording features Tony Arnold's soprano and Movses Pogossian on violin, and the DVD includes a performance as well as a clip of Kurtag coaching the performers. I was sure a Dawn Upshaw recording was in the works at one point, as she sang the KAFKA-FRAGMENTE in January of 2005 in NYC with Geoff Nuttall on violin in a dramatic performance with staging by Peter Sellars, doing housework, with black-and-white photo projections. But that has not materialized.

This ECM recording is probably the most accessible at this point, and it is a fine performance and recording. But I still have great fondness for the Ondine, which I heard first. Komsi's soprano is more pure and thin than Banse, and the Ondine production is brighter, with the musicians foregrounded, and without the deep resonance that famously characterizes Manfred Eicher's ECM productions. Banse and Keller are superb, but I wouldn't want to be without the Ondine recording!

My first acquaintence with Kurtag; I put on the disc and sit in my chair. The music begins. I am staring through the window at the trees and fields opposite, made grey-green by the rough wind and the battleship sky that glowers above it all. Within minutes, I am that landscape and the landscape is me, made one by this singular music. Before long, space collapses, and I, the chair, the world, the music, are just a trajectory of consciousness through time. When self resumes, as it always must, I feel the future evenings, in years ahead, when I will come home from work needing very much to hear something, and only this will do.

Lines, indeed terse fragments from Kafka's diaries. Seldom anything as coherent as an aphorism. Set to, mostly, very brief fragments of music, of half to a couple of minutes duration. A few longer pieces define critical moments in the work, conferring structure on its unfolding. Music of great economy but filled with art, never anything as naive or vulgar as minimalist. Music for the simple pairing of soprano and solo violin, yet unfailingly inventive for the fifty or so minutes of the work's duration. Despite the brevity of the individual pieces there is no sense of bittiness to the overall experience. This is because each fragment emerges, sometimes erupts, from the underlying silence, presents itself as a brief disturbance, then returns to the equilibrium from which it first arose. It is the underlying silence that is the essence of the work, and the underlying silence that comprises its hard, brilliant spirituality. Drawing on Kafka, one would expect a work tinged with paranoia and barely suppressed guilt and anguish, and indeed these things are there to be heard if one so chooses, but the pacing of the silence transmutes these elements into something quite alien, and yet so comfortable and easy to settle into.

As ever ECM's recording standards are of the highest order. After all, no one does silence quite like Manfred Eicher's ECM. Kurtag directed the soloists for this recording and one must presume the performances to be a flawless transduction of the composer's intentions. Despite the technically challenging nature of some parts of the work, there is not a misplaced squeak or crack to mar the integrity of the flow at any point. Indeed, there is not a phonon in the whole performace you would wish there rather than here. The ECM booklet is packed with information; on Kafka, on Kurtag and on the outstanding soloists. As ever, there are the photographs in the stark house style, that vividly capture the creation of the artefact.

So, a new composer for my pantheon. More Kurtag please, indeed more ECM Kurtag.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 6 customer reviews on Amazon.co.uk

 

5.0 out of 5 stars curious judge
This is nothing to do with the Kurtag recording being reviewed on this page. I am just baffled by the last sentence of the review above by 'judge', in which he mentions... Read more

Published 12 months ago by Mr. Yavuz P. Mutlu

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful CD
Kurtag defies labelling: not atonal but hardly melodic; emotional but not Romantic; serious yet playful. Read more

Published on 14 April 2008 by The judge

5.0 out of 5 stars haunting
A stunning work by Kurtag. No fractured and fragmented lines but something more elliptical. One voice and a single violin. How evocative can this combination be? Read more

Published on 6 Mar 2006 by N. A. Bakhshov

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

› See all 6 customer reviews on Amazon.co.uk

Search Listmania!