György Kurtág: Kafka Fragments

György Kurtág was inspired to transpose Franz Kafka’s highly visual language into music after reading his letters, diary entries and short stories, such as Wedding Preparations in the Country. He was so fascinated by Kafka’s bare and succinct language, by the sadness and despair, and the humour and depth of Kafka’s writing, that he went on to compose a longer work, which he completed in spring 1987. This piece shows that Kurtág and Kafka share very specific artistic and personal sensibilities. Both are noteworthy for the economy of their artistic means and both take their art to extremes. Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments is broken into forty brief settings and organised in four sections. The central motif is “the path”. Kurtág goes to the very limits of what is technically possible, placing great demands on the voice and the violins, which cover a huge expressive range. As “Eusebius” and “Florestan”, they span musical and theatrical poles, whilst remaining intimately interlinked.

With the exceptional violinist Carolin Widmann and soprano Salome Kammer, stage director Antoine Gindt creates dramatic performance that successfully captures the piece’s meaningful aphorisms and highly expressive musical miniatures.