Gyorgy Kurtag Complete Choral Works (2006)
EAC Rip | FLAC, IMG+CUE, LOG | 1 CD | Complete Scans | 145 MB
Classical/20th Century | Label: hänssler CLASSIC \ Cat.: 93174 | RS/MU
In its concision and intensity, Gyorgy Kurtag’s choral music pursues a similar approach to his instrumental work. All three cycles were begun during 1979-81, though the process of completion was very different. Omaggio a Luigi Nono (1981) evolved quickly, perhaps because expressive consistency overrides technical diversity – the cycle centring on texts by Rimma Dalos that paraphrase earlier sources so as to reinforce their sentiments by seeming to contradict them. In their relative purity as choral music, they differ markedly from Eight Choruses, to poems by Dezso Tandori (1984) – aphorisms posing as riddles, embodied in writing that evokes a near-orchestral range of sonority, an “instrumentation” that is made graphic in Songs of Despair and Sorrow (1994). These settings of mainly short-lived Russian poets embody some of Kurtag’s most plangent writing, aided by an ensemble – two harmoniums and four bayans (Russian accordions) alongside brass, strings and percussion – remarkable for the way it is subsumed into the chorus as if an extension of that being communicated.