Kurtag's Tribute

Synopsis

Contemporary Hungarian composer György Kurtág is famous for writing short, sparse and concentrated musical works. He has, however on occasional written more expansive pieces, including one big orchestral piece for the Berlin Philharmonic and some works for large chorus.

Obsessively self-critical, Kurtág disavowed most of the music he wrote before his mid-thirties, which included some for chorus, but a suggestion from Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono that he write for chorus again resulted in a work that the BBC Singers premiered in London on today’s date in 1981.

It has an Italian title, Omaggio a Luigi Nono, or Tribute to Luigi Nono, — a tip of the hat to his Italian colleague, but the work itself is a setting of bits of Russian poems. Now at the time of its premiere, 25 years after the Russian-led invasion of Hungary in 1956 and 10 years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Hungarian eyebrows were raised when Kurtág chose to set Russian texts. Disparaging or just plain dissing anything Russian was the normal M.O. for Hungarian intellectuals in those days.

Kurtág, for his part, stood his ground: as an ardent Dostoevsky’s fan, he simply said Russian was a sacred language to him.

Music Played in Today's Program

György Kurtág (b. 1926): Omaggio a Luigi Nono; SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart; Marcus Creed, director; SWR Music; 93.174

On This Day

Births

• 1525 - earliest possible birth date for the Italian composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who was probably born between February 3, 1525 and February 2, 1526, most likely at Palestrina (near Rome)

• 1809 - German composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, in Hamburg

• 1842 - American poet, flutist and composer Sidney Lanier, in Macon, Georgia

• 1904 - Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola, in Pisino, Istria

• 1910 - Mexican composer Blas Galindo Dimas, in San Gabriel, Jalisco

• 1911 - French composer and organist Jehan Alain, in Paris

Deaths

• 1814 - Bohemian composer Johann Antonin Kozeluch, 75, in Prague

Premieres

• 1823 - Rossini: opera Semiramide, in Venice at the Teatro la Fenice

• 1844 - Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture, in Paris at the Salle Herz, with the composer conducting

• 1867 - Brahms: String Sextet No. 2, Op. 36, in Vienna, by the Hellmesberger Sextet. This work had received some informal performances in Zürich the preceding year.

• 1868 - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1, in Moscow (Gregorian date: Feb. 15)

• 1884 - Tchaikovsky: opera Mazeppa in Moscow (Gregorian date: Feb. 15)

• 1894 - Glazunov: Symphony No. 4, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Jan. 22)

• 1945 - Stravinsky: Scènes de Ballet, in New York City by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by the composer. This work was commissioned by Broadway impresario Billy Rose for a 1944 revue, The Seven Lively Arts.

• 1956 - Elie Siegmeister: Clarinet Concerto, in Oklahoma City

• 1989 - Michael Torke: Ash, in St. Paul, Minn., by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, John Adams conducting

• 2002 - Philip Glass: Symphony No. 6, at Carnegie Hall, by the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies