Kurtag: Kafka Fragments / Melzer, Stark

$15.99
Label
BIS
Release Date
October 9, 2015
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      KURTAG, GYORGY
    • PERFORMER
      Melzer, Stark
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      October 09, 2015
    • UPC
      7318599921754
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      BIS-2175
    • LABEL
      BIS
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Vocal
    Works ⌄

    1. Part I: No. 1. Die Guten gehen im gleichen Schritt… (The good march in step…)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    2. Part I: No. 2. Wie ein Weg im Herbst (Like a pathway in autumn)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    3. Part I: No. 3. Verstecke (Hiding-places)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    4. Part I: No. 4. Ruhelos (Restless)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    5. Part I: No. 5. Berceuse I

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    6. Part I: No. 6. Nimmermehr (Nevermore) (Excommunicatio)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    7. Part I: No. 7, Wenn er mich immer fragt ("But he just won't stop asking me.")

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    8. Part I: No. 8. Es zupfte mich jemand am Kleid (Someone tugged at my clothes)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    9. Part I: No. 9. Die weissnaherinnen (The seamsresses)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    10. Part I: No. 10. Szene am Bahnhof (Scene at the station)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    11. Part I: No. 11. Sonntag, den 19. Juli 1910 (Sunday, 19th July 1910) (Berceuse II, Hommage a Jeney)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    12. Part I: No. 12. Meine Ohrmuschel… (My ear…)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    13. Part I: No. 13. Einmal brach ich mir das Bein (Chassidischer Tanz) (Once I broke my leg (Chassidic Dance))

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    14. Part I: No. 14. Umpanzert (Enarmoured)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    15. Part I: No. 15. 2 Spazierstocke (Authentisch-plagal) (2 walking-sticks (Authentic-plagal))

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    16. Part I: No. 16. Keine Ruckkehr (No going back)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    17. Part I: No. 17. Stolz (1910/15. November, zehn Uhr) (Pride (15th November 1910, 10 o'clock))

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    18. Part I: No. 18. Traumend hing die Blume (The flower hung dreamily) (Hommage a Schumann)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    19. Part I: No. 19. Nichts dergleichen (Nothing of the kind)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    20. Part II: Der wahre Weg (The true path) (Hommage-message a Pierre Boulez)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    21. Part III: No. 1. Haben? Sein? (To have? To be?)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    22. Part III: No. 2. Der Coitus als Bestrafung (Coitus as punishment) (Canticulum Mariae Magdalenae)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    23. Part III: No. 3. Meine Festung (My fortress)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    24. Part III: No. 4. Schmutzig bin ich, Milena… (I am dirty, Milena…)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    25. Part III: No. 5. Elendes Leben (Miserable life) (Double)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    26. Part III: No. 6. Der begrenzte Kreis (The closed circle)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    27. Part III: No. 7. Ziel, Weg, Zogern (Destination, path, hesitation)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    28. Part III: No. 8. So fest (As tightly)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    29. Part III: No. 9. Verstecke (Hiding-places) (Double)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    30. Part III: No. 10. Penetrant Judisch (Offensively Jewish)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    31. Part III: No. 11. Staunend sahen wir das grosse Pferd (Amazed, we saw the great horse)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    32. Part III: No. 12. Szene in de Elektrischen, 1910 (Scene on a tram, 1910)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    33. Part IV: No. 1. Zu spat (22. Oktober 1913) (Too late (22nd October 1913)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    34. Part IV: No. 2. Eine lange Geschichte (A long story)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    35. Part IV: No. 3. In memoriam Robert Klein

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    36. Part IV: No. 4. Aus einem alten Notizbuch (From an old notebook)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    37. Part IV: No. 5. Leoparden (Leopards)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    38. Part IV: No. 6. In memoriam Joannis Pilinszky

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    39. Part IV: No. 7. Wiederum, wiederum (Again, again)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark

    40. Part IV: No. 8. Es blendete uns die Mondnacht (The moonlit night dazzled us)

      Composer: György Kurtág

      Performer: Caroline Melzer, Nurit Stark


One of the truly grand old men on the music scene today, György Kurtág composed his Kafka-Fragmente in the mid-1980s, and these forty settings of text fragments by Franz Kafka remain one of his most often-performed works. Although the cycle contains no single narrative thread and tells no coherent ‘tale’ it has become quite common to present it in staged versions – perhaps because of the hypnotic images that emerge in the texts, as well as in the music. Many of the movements are extremely brief; in the present recording 11 of the movements are less than half a minute long, and the shortest (Es zupfte mich jemand am Kleid / Someone tugged at my clothes) lasts only 13 seconds. However, to quote the insightful liner notes by the musicologist Philippe Albéra: ’Within these miniature spaces, expressivity – as if through a process of crystallization – is pushed to its utmost limits.’ Collected by the composer, the texts have been extracted from Kafka’s letters, diaries and notebooks; shards that together form a mosaic at times sardonic, absurd, lyrical or humourous. Kurtág’s ability to convey a wide range of situations and emotions transforms each fragment into a vision of dreamlike intensity, where the real becomes surreal, and Albéra finds a symbol of the spirit of Kurtág’s music in the 16th fragment, Kein Rückkehr, and Kafka’s aphorism: ‘From a certain point on, there is no going back. That is the point to reach.’ The often highly virtuosic and demanding score is here interpreted by the soprano Caroline Meltzer and the violinist Nurit Stark, both performers with a strong commitment to contemporary music who collaborated with composers such as Aribert Reimann, Sofia Gubaidulina and Viktor Suslin.

Reviews:

Caroline Melzer and Nurit Stark yield nothing to previous performers in penetrating the depth and breadth of emotion that Kurtag conveys, and it helps that this is the best recorded version available, allowing their wide range of tone, colour and dynamics to be heard to full effect.

– BBC Music Magazine

The 40 separate fragments are divided into four groups…linked less by a definable concept than an intuitive sense of what constitutes unity within the author's bleak and fractured world-view. It is in this latter respect that Caroline Melzer and Nurit Stark make so gripping an impression - characterising the many fragmentary shards with an explosive intimacy…a likely first choice for those new to this enigmatic and intriguing work.

– Gramophone