Notizbuch

Anyone familiar with György Kurtág's practices will probably expect his Kafka-Fragmente, Op. 24 (1985-1986), to be another of his open-ended works, pieces that exist in a state of potential revision that are intermittently subjected to changes. Yet for all its looseness of design and apparent mutability – one can easily imagine these extremely short movements rearranged in several different orders and for various instruments – this setting for soprano and violin of phrases from Franz Kafka's letters and diaries is complete and unlikely to be configured in any other version.