György Kurtág and his artistic path

György Kurtág, born on February 19, 1926 in Lugoj (Banat, Romania), is one of the most important composers in the history of modern music. His musical journey began early: he began piano lessons at the age of five. He was particularly influenced by playing music with his mother, with whom he played four-handed arrangements of Haydn and Beethoven symphonies and Mozart overtures.

kurtág began his studies in piano, chamber music and composition at the Budapest Academy of Music in 1946. There he met György Ligeti - a fellow composer and lifelong friend. In 1947, Kurtág married the pianist Marta Kinsker, who from then on played a formative role in his life as an interpreter, advisor and first critic of his works.

His stay in Paris in 1957/58 was decisive for Kurtág's artistic development. Here he attended courses with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud and, with the help of psychologist Marianne Stein, emerged from a serious creative crisis. This period marked a turning point: inspired by works by Pierre Boulez and new musical ideas by Ligeti and Stockhausen, Kurtág wrote his string quartet in 1959, which he called "Opus 1" - a new beginning, despite his earlier compositions.

Kurtág's works range from solo pieces to chamber music and large orchestral compositions. The works in which he experiments with literary texts are of particular importance. Examples of this are the Kafka Fragments (op. 24) and the Scenes from a Novel (op. 19), which create innovative dialogues between music and literature.

György Kurtág has received numerous prestigious awards for his work, including the Ordre pour le Mérite for Science and the Arts. He was composer in residence at the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Konzerthaus and taught at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Kurtág is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste.

To this day, György Kurtág remains a formative composer of contemporary music whose works set new standards for musical innovation.