Hungarian composer György Kurtág, who turns 90 next year, is the contemporary master of the musical aphorism.
His Játékok (Games) is a series of highly varied keyboard miniatures that's ongoing since 1973. It encompasses what he calls diary entries and personal messages – homages and memorials to friends and colleagues. In his favoured concert presentation with his wife Márta, the two play solos and duets interspersed with duet arrangements of Bach.
Theirs is an intimate, engrossing music-making, amorous, playful, earnest, highly personal, and in its own less-is-more, musico-homeopathic way, one of the musical wonders of our day. T
his film of their 2012 Paris concert, dedicated to the memory of musicologist Haydée Charbagi, is directed by Isabelle Soulard.
