Kurtág: Signs, Games and Messages, for strings

The great viola player Kim Kashkashian has long been one of the most outstanding protagonists of modern composition and this bold and subtle account of solo music by the great Hungarian composers György Kurtág and György Ligeti is a landmark recording. Kurtág’s Signs, Games and Messages (1989- in progress) in its 19 aphoristic sections is as demanding as Ligeti’s Sonata for viola (1991-94), but Kashkashian surmounts the very different challenges of the works, and points towards the qualities that unite these composers. As ever, she gets to the heart of the music, and unravels its secrets.

In his liner note, Wolfgang Sandner comments: “For twenty years Kim Kashkashian has devoted herself to Kurtág’s complex oeuvre for the viola and developed a remarkable rapport for the relation between compositional fabric and sonic nuance. In the thoughtful dramaturgical sequence of this recording, and in Kashkashian’s scrupulous reading, these Kurtág pieces, and the six movements of Ligeti’s Viola Sonata that follows them, seem like the work of a single visionary artist – conveyed in hidden signs and coded messages.”

Amongst her many notable albums for ECM New Series, Kashkashian has recorded Kurtág’s Movement for viola and orchestra (4654202) and also his Nine Pieces for Solo Viola, the early Jelek for viola, op 5, and the chamber work Hommage à R.Sch. (4379572). This is the ninth disc on the label devoted in whole or in part to Kurtág’s music.

This is the first complete recording of the 24 Signs, Games and Messages by Hungarian composer György Kurtág: a collection of very personal miniatures which Kurtág began writing almost 50 years ago and which he continues to add to. Many have been written, dedicated or inspired by a particular person; they pass, sometimes impertinent, sad, serene, cheerful, joyful, thoughtful or melancholic. This CD is completed by the first recordings of four other pieces for viola solo, composed in the 1990s between Budapest and Berlin. Winner of Darmstadt Preis and International Award Interpretation Iannis Xenakis in Paris, violist Maurizio Barbetti has performed as a soloist in major concert halls worldwide. New commission have been written for him by such composers as Paul Mèfano, Ennio Morricone and Luis de Pablo e Horatiu Radulescu. Barbetti is joined by baritone Gianpiero Ruggeri, who sings on “Samuel Beckett: le nain”.