Kurtag - Jatekok
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Label: Pentatone
Cat No: PTC5187030
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 2
Genre: Instrumental
Release Date: 2nd May 2025
Contents
Artists
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)About
Star pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard presents an anthology from György Kurtág’s Játékok (Games), recorded in the composer’s presence and under his artistic guidance. In his extensive series of Játékok, Kurtág realises the spontaneity of a child exploring the piano with the compositional means of his adventurous, avant-garde idiom. Recording such an extensive collection of Játékok is an important statement for Aimard, who has developed an intimate artistic friendship with the composer over decades.
A renowned champion of twentieth-century music, Pierre-Laurent Aimard has released multiple acclaimed albums in his exclusive contract with PENTATONE, including Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (2018) and Visions de l’Amen (2022), along with Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata & Eroica Variations (2021). He also joined Tamara Stefanovich in Etudes and Frames (2023), with music by Vassos Nicolaou, and recorded Bartók’s Piano Concertos with the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen (2023). The miniature nature of Kurtág’s Játékok makes them an unexpected, yet logical successor of Aimard’s acclaimed album Schubert Ländler (2024), which consisted of dances that the pianist often combines with Kurtág’s short pieces in live performances.
A renowned champion of twentieth-century music, Pierre-Laurent Aimard has released multiple acclaimed albums in his exclusive contract with PENTATONE, including Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (2018) and Visions de l’Amen (2022), along with Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata & Eroica Variations (2021). He also joined Tamara Stefanovich in Etudes and Frames (2023), with music by Vassos Nicolaou, and recorded Bartók’s Piano Concertos with the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen (2023). The miniature nature of Kurtág’s Játékok makes them an unexpected, yet logical successor of Aimard’s acclaimed album Schubert Ländler (2024), which consisted of dances that the pianist often combines with Kurtág’s short pieces in live performances.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Book V (1997): 42. In memoriam György Szoltsányi
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2Book VI (1997): 34. Doina
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3Book VI (1997): 50. In memoriam András Mihály
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4Book VII (2003): 16. Roaming in the Past — Ligatura for Ligeti
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5Book VII (2003): 17. Hommage ŕ Berényi Ferenc 70
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6Book VII (2003): 20. In memoriam Ilona Rozsnyai
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7Book VII (2003): 23. Hommage ŕ Hanny Brunner-Pohl
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8Book VII (2003): 24. *** (I’m talking to my mother about Márta)
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9Book VII (2003): 30. In memoriam Johan van der Keuken
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10Book IX (2017): 5. Quiet dialogue — To Árpád Göncz with much love, friendship and respect
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11Book IX (2017): 8. Hommage ŕ Georg Kröll 70
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12Book IX (2017): 9. Hommage ŕ Jehuda Elkana 70
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13Book IX (2017): 22. Kedves Kett(d)ö — to Márta on reaching
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14Book IX (2017): 23. Rituale Kálmán Strém in memoriam
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15Book X (2021): 27. in memoriam Emil Petrovics
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16in manuscript, the publication of Book XI is in progress: Ligature dolce - amara - amara dolce — to Márta
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17in manuscript, the publication of Book XI is in progress: ...wie soll ich... —to Márta for 1st October 30/9/2014
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18in manuscript, the publication of Book XI is in progress: Passio sine nomine 26/3/2015
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19in manuscript, the publication of Book XI is in progress: ...le chien... to Gyuri for his 66th from his father 13/10/2020
Europadisc Review
Over the last quarter of the 20th century, György Kurtág – along with fellow Hungarian György Ligeti – emerged as one of the leading composers of his generation. Now in his 100th year, Kurtág continues to be astonishingly productive, even while his mobility has been greatly reduced. And of all the works in his extraordinarily focused, often epigrammatic, free-spirited and engagingly challenging style, none is more quintessential than Játékok (‘Games’), an ongoing series of miniatures for solo piano and four-hand or two-piano pieces. The first works in the series date back to 1973, when their concentrated, elemental qualities helped him to overcome a major creative block.
Játékok now numbers comfortably more than 400 individual pieces organised in ten books (an eleventh is in progress), ranging from the extremely brief pseudo-pedagogical pieces of the earlier books to the (only slightly) more extended diary pieces and tributes to friends, colleagues and loved ones of Book 5 onwards. None lasts more than four minutes, and some are just a few seconds in length, often witty examples of extreme compression or focus on a particular note or sound. There is a waltz constructed from a single note (in different octaves), pieces whose preoccupation is with linking two pitches, and others which play with such figures as scales in contrary-motion. Initially developing from a desire to develop musicianship in children – not technique per se but the art of gesture, sometimes daringly precipitous – the series soon developed into something far more personal, a sort of compositional workshop in which glimpses of the composer’s inner life and loves are laid bare.
Pieces from the Játékok collection were frequent features of concerts given by Kurtág and his late wife, Márta, who died in 2019. Now that Kurtág himself is no longer mobile enough to play them, French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard – whose association with the composer goes back half a century to the time when the first pieces in the series were still new – has taken it upon himself to be their champion, working closely with Kurtág. For his latest album on the Pentatone album, Aimard has set about recording not the complete cycle (‘that would not have truly made sense... and, in fact, the composer did not want that’) but a representative selection of 81 pieces made with Kurtág’s approval and under his close supervision. (Our sound samples offer merely a taster of some of the longer pieces.) All but books 4 and 8 (the duet/duo pieces) are represented, including extensive excerpts from Books 6, 7 and the as yet unpublished Book 11.
There are points of contact between this cycle and Béla Bartók’s Mikrokosmos pieces, and also with Ligeti’s Musica ricercata. What is unique to Kurtág’s series, however, is the abiding sense that each piece, no matter how fleeting, contains a world in itself: sometimes light-hearted, at others poised and inward, often utterly ineffable. The numerous pieces dedicated to Márta are particularly touching, as are those entitled ‘Flowers We Are’. While the notation of many of the pieces leaves much to the player’s discretion, Aimard has evidently worked closely with Kurtág and producer Benedikt Schröder to maximise the gestural and expressive potential of each piece. As well as a Steinway grand, a Burger & Jacobi upright and Kurtág’s own pianino are heard, the latter instruments bringing a more personal focus to the works of the more recent books.
The recordings, made in the Budapest Music Center in June/July 2022 and June 2024, combine the focus essential to grasping the facets of each self-contained world with a sympathetic warmth. In these performances, as in his recent Pentatone album of short Schubert dances, Aimard proves a masterful guide in the piano miniature form, and these recordings must surely now be regarded (together with the Kurtágs’ own earlier recording on ECM dating back to 1996, predating Books 5 onwards) as definitive. As a celebration of the uniquely beguiling soundworld of this revered and much-loved Hungarian master, it could hardly be bettered. Heartily recommended!
Reviews
... listening to Aimard’s exemplary performances provides as important an insight into Kurtág’s very personal musical thinking as any of his larger-scale, more “public” pieces. Játékok is one of the major achievements of the last half century, and Aimard is the perfect guide to it. Andrew ClementsThe Guardian 2 May 2025
This is music that fascinates from start to finish and Aimard plays it like a master-storyteller, sometimes a sit-down comic. It is unlike any other music I know. Norman LebrechtMy Scena 4 April 2025
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