AboutHélène Grimaud
György Kurtág is one of the most frequently performed contemporary composers. He has served as Composer-in-Residence for orchestras, concert halls, theaters, and ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Dutch National Opera, and the Ensemble InterContemporain.
He has received numerous awards for his music, including the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for his life's work (1998), the Grawemeyer Award (2006), the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale (2009), and the most highly endowed prize in contemporary music, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2015).
In his works, György Kurtág combines a profound and responsible awareness of tradition ("My mother tongue is Bartók, and Bartók's mother tongue was Beethoven") with the concentrated musical language of Anton Webern and the immediate expressiveness of Alban Berg.
György Kurtág was born on February 19, 1926, in Lugoj, now part of Romania. From 1940, he received piano lessons from Magda Kardos and composition lessons from Max Eisikovits in Timişoara (Temesvár). In 1946, he moved to Budapest and studied piano with Pál Kadosa, chamber music with Leó Weiner, and composition with Sándor Veress and Ferenc Farkas at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. He also met his future wife, Márta, at the Academy of Music in Budapest, and received his composition diploma in 1955.
From 1957 to 1958, Kurtág stayed in Paris as a scholarship holder, attending composition and analysis courses with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud, and making the crucial acquaintance of psychologist Marianne Stein. In Paris, he also discovered the music of Anton Webern and the plays of Samuel Beckett. After returning to Budapest, Kurtág wrote his String Quartet Op. 1 in 1959. From 1960 to 1968, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian National Philharmonic, and from 1967 to 1993, he was a professor of piano and chamber music at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.
His international breakthrough came in 1981 with the cycle for soprano and chamber orchestra "The Messages of the Late R. V. Trusova," premiered by the Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris. Other important works include the "Kafka Fragments" for soprano and violin (1987) and "Stele" (1993), a commissioned work by the Berlin Philharmonic. His spatial composition "...quasi una fantasia..." is one of the most popular orchestral works in contemporary music. In 2015, his orchestral composition "Petite musique solennelle en hommage à Pierre Boulez 90" was premiered at the Lucerne Festival. The Berlin Philharmonic, under the direction of Simon Rattle, will perform the German premiere of this work on the occasion of Kurtág's 90th birthday on February 18, 19, and 20, 2016.
Residencies1993–1994 Berlin Philharmonic1995 Wiener Konzerthaus1996–1998 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Dutch National Opera, Schönberg Ensemble1999–2001 Ensemble InterContemporain, Conservatoire de Paris, Festival d’Automne2004 Salzburg FestivalAwards and Honors1973 Kossuth Prize (Hungarian State Prize)1985 Officier des Arts et des Lettres1987 Member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts (Munich) and the Academy of Arts (Berlin)1993 Prix de Composition Musicale of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco for Grabstein für Stephan and Op. 27 No 2 (Double Concerto) Herder Prize of the Freiherr-vom-Stein Foundation (Hamburg) Premio Feltrinelli of the Accademia dei Lincei (Rome)1994 Composers' Prize of the State of Austria Denis de Rougemont Prize, awarded by the European Association of Festivals1996 Kossuth Prize (Hungarian State Prize)1998 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for his life's work2001 Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters2006 Grawemeyer Award for …concertante… Op. 422009 Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale2012 Wihuri-Sibelius Prize (Helsinki)2013 Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal2015 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award