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Despite the grandiose title, "Complete Choral Works," this CD includes only three pieces. But it doesn't matter: the music is by Hungarian György Kurtág, one of the most peculiar "cases" in so-called contemporary music: a composer discovered in his mature years, whose name circulated thanks to the support of colleagues (composers and musicians) captivated by his modesty and reserve, and who boasts a collection of works that is anything but vast (about forty) yet of great expressiveness.
Let's read what Kurtág says about the first piece on this CD: When Luigi Nono first came to Budapest, he wanted to meet me: it was 1978, and during a conversation, we discovered the affinity of our ideas on life, art, and music. That evening, he heard the premiere of one of my string quartet pieces at a concert and told me, "You must write for choir." These words were an order for me.
Thus was born "Homage to Luigi Nono,” a 9-minute piece written between 1979 and 1981: music entirely entrusted to the voices of a small mixed choir, sometimes subdued in dynamics, sometimes impetuous, but always with carefully sought sonorities that avoid the harshness and dissonance of much of today's music (Nono would respond to this piece in 1983 with the "Homage to György Kurtág" for contralto, 3 instruments, and electronics).
Similar is the subsequent piece, "Eight Choruses on Poems by Dezsö Tandori,” composed between 1981 and 1984: 10 minutes that clearly reveal another characteristic of Kurtág, namely, his preference for the fragment. The piece alternates between female and male voices, competing to take center stage: but it is a brief struggle because the choir soon comes together and articulates its musical discourse in short fragments instead of an uninterrupted continuum.
Truly masterful is the third piece on the CD: the "Songs of Despair and Sorrow,” which, despite the title, are not at all sad or subdued. More lively than the previous two pieces, the work features some rare instrumental interventions: but the choir is always and unquestionably the focus. Nearly 22 minutes in duration, at its best moments, the music reaches great heights of enchantment, such as in the concluding fragment where the instrumental part consists solely of percussion and the sounds become hypnotic and nocturnal, with the choir whispering softly.
And to think that these Songs were initially set aside by the composer, only to be improved, expanded, and revised in a period spanning from 1980 to 1994, a testament to the extreme rigor that Kurtág applies to his work: an attitude that can serve as an example for all of us, not just for those who are musicians.
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