Kurtág's Russian settings: The word made flesh

Abstract

Much of Kurtág's mature work reveals a preoccupation with the Word, either as bearer of meaning or as a self-contained unit of sonority. The interest in language is connected with lapidary forms, whose source appears to lie in a spiritual and creative crisis Kurtág underwent in Paris in 1956, hence their frequent connection in his mind with squalor, degradation and self-mortification. The Russian language works appear to feed on this connection in a specifically passionate, theatrical why which yields a greater expressive range than in much of Kurtág's work, while essentially basing themselves on similar ideas and gestures to those of other works of the time.