Armand Angster considers György Kurtág a “companion on the road”. “We have been playing his pieces for years,” he says. It is only natural that the clarinetist and his accomplices from Accroche Note – a Strasbourg-based ensemble founded by him and soprano Françoise Kubler – have decided to explore his repertoire in a program full of friendly resonances. In this program, a world premiere piece titled “Hommage à Marta et György Kurtág” by Ivan Solano, a clarinetist and composer who was his student, will also be performed.
In addition, Agnès Maison (viola), Ekaterina Yukhnova (cimbalom), Jean-Luc Iffrig (organ and piano), and Wilhem Latchoumia (piano) have prepared an excursion into the Hungarian composer’s work. They will present “Hommage à R.Sch” (1990) – referring to Robert Schumann – a sometimes surprising “hit” (with a brilliant final flourish) that dialogues with the “Märchenerzählungen” (1853) written by the master of German romanticism for the same ensemble (clarinet, viola, and piano).
A passionately free man
A collection of scores, like “Les Trois inscriptions anciennes” for voice and piano, a unique ode to love from 1987, or excerpts from “Signes, jeux et messages”, exhilarating experimental miniatures, will allow audiences to discover a passionately free man whose music is deeply rooted in the past. Particularly in Bach’s work. He has transcribed numerous cantatas and other works of the “Cantor of Leipzig” for piano four hands (including three examples presented here, like “Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir BWV 687”) that he performed with his wife. Concerning this, he once said: “I am certainly consciously an atheist, but I don’t say it out loud because when I contemplate Bach, I cannot be. His music never stops praying.”
Event details:
Sainte-Aurélie Church in Strasbourg, Saturday, April 18th, at 7:00 pm. Free entry. Website: www.accrochenote.com
