It would be difficult to name another composer as adept at creating great effects with small gestures, achieving intimacy with just a few bow strokes, and opening poetic worlds within short forms. One single singer can draw her audience into a magical circle, merely by following the exquisite notes György Kurtág carefully sets out on paper. Amidst a media landscape that seems to always strive for bigger, more overwhelming, more scandalous, he creates islands of mindfulness, demonstrating that fewer musicians often have more to say.

György Kurtág, born on February 19, 1926, is one of the most successful and cosmopolitan composers of the past hundred years. Artistic sojourns and positions took him to Berlin, Vienna and Paris. For more than six decades, he performed at the piano with his wife Márta Kurtág. His mysterious yet profoundly human attitude won him the nickname «The Monk». He hardly ever discusses his own works. Instead, he prefers to ask his performers questions, leaving them lots of room and space to play with – very literally – in order to illuminate serious and pleasant life situations with plentiful nuance. He often chooses literary starting points for his works, which are poetic in their concentration and force of expression.

It is only logical that the concerts paying homage to the Hungarian composer take place in the intimate atmosphere of the Salle de Musique de Chambre. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who has worked with the composer for many years and gave world premieres of several of his works for piano, will juxtapose music by Kurtág and Johann Sebastian Bach in a!fascinating dialogue. Special insights into Kurtág’s repertoire and his musical homeland can be expected from the Rising Star Áron Horváth and his instrument, the Hungarian cimbalom, on which he will present not only compositions by Kurtág, but also authentic folk music from Hungary and South-Eastern Europe.