Timeless

György Kurtág (r.) with Claudio Abbado during rehearsals for the world premiere of Stele at the Philharmonie Berlin, 1994.
(Photo: Reinhard Friedrich / Archiv Berliner Philharmoniker)

Kirill Petrenko is the third principal conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker to programme György Kurtág’s Stele. This continuity is no accident but reflects a long-standing association between the orchestra and the composer.

It was not until his sixties that the Hungarian composer György Kurtág came to international attention, and yet it would be wrong to speak of him as a “late developer”. He had been writing music since his childhood and as a young man his works were also grounded in politics. The fact that it look so long for his name to become known outside his homeland was due above all to the country’s political isolation as a result of the Iron Curtain.

Despite this he was able to attend courses with Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen in Paris in 1957 and on his way home he was also introduced to the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne. Possibly even more important was an encounter with a French psychologist, who advised him to deal with a crisis of confidence by starting anew as a composer and writing only small-scale works. And so he began to compose miniatures, some of them only a few bars in length, all of them incorporating the influences of predecessors and contemporaries who were close to him and who include Bach, Bartók, Beethoven and Varèse. In this way he was gradually able to write longer works.

Composer in Residence

Kurtág’s music was first heard at a concert by the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1990, when the Brandis Quartet played his Twelve Microludes at a series of chamber recitals. Kurtág was the orchestra’s composer in residence during the 1993/94 season, resulting in a happy association between the orchestra and the composer, the effects of which can still be felt today. During this time piano pieces and instrumental and vocal chamber works were performed, as were orchestral works under the Kurtág’s music was first heard at a concert by the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1990, when the Brandis Quartet played his Twelve Microludes at a series of chamber recitals. Kurtág was the orchestra’s composer in residence during the 1993/94 season, resulting in a happy association between the orchestra and the composer, the effects of which can still be felt today. During this time piano pieces and instrumental and vocal chamber works were performed, as were orchestral works under the direction of Claudio Abbado. These included Grabstein für Stephan and, as the highlight of the season, the world premiere of Stele on 14 December 1994. Since then Kurtág’s music has been a permanent feature of the orchestra’s repertory.

Abbado’s successor, Sir Simon Rattle, also held Kurtág’s music in high regard and conducted Grabstein für Stephan in 2010 and 2014 as well as on tour in Budapest, while Stele was heard several times not only under Rattle as part of a programme that was performed in Berlin in 2006 and in New York and Boston in 2007 but also under Bernard Haitink. Kirill Petrenko’s performances mark the fourth time that Kurtág’s work has featured in a Berliner Philharmoniker programme.