It's always a pleasure to be able to celebrate the centennial of a living composer. That's right, the great Hungarian composer, György Kurtág, turns 100 on February 19. A titan of contemporary music who excelled at minaturist forms, Kurtág has amassed a wide body of work known for its intensity and compression. This afternoon, on Classical Music with Foley Schuler, we'll hear selections drawn from several of his landmark works, inculding what is widely considered his magnum opus, the Kafka Fragments from 1987, as well as his acclaimed opera based on Samuel Beckett's Endgame. He is also a distinguished pianist, whose students included Zoltán Kocsis and András Schiff, and we'll be hearing from them as well in honor of the occasion. Well hear Kurtág himself on the piano performing a selection from monumental collection of "pedagogical performance pieces" entitled Játékok ("Games")—begun in 1973 and occupying the composer to the present day (there were 10 volumes as of 2021), his ongoing attemp to recapture the spirit of children at play.
You can hear Foley Schuler's musical selections—and stories behind the music—every weekday afternoon from 1 until 4 on Blue Lake Public Radio.
