Kurtág: Six moments musicaux; Officium breve / Dvořák: String Quintet, Op. 97

Parker Quartet, Kim Kashkashian

Released on 22/10/2021 by ECM New Series
Main artists: Parker Quartet Kim Kashkashian
Genre: Klassiek

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At first glance, the pairing of the two composers chosen by the Parker Quartet and violist Kim Kashkashian for their recording on ECM New Series may appear unusual. However, György Kurtág and Antonín Dvořák have more in common than a fleeting glimpse at their oeuvre – an extremely narrow, concentrated catalogue of works in the one case and a multifaceted life's work that lavishly encompasses all musical genres in the other – would suggest.

There is no question that György Kurtág and Antonín Dvořák are creators of eminent chamber music works. Dvořák wrote thirty-one works in this field (not counting the two serenades and some lost pieces), the most generously represented genre being the string quartet with fourteen works, in addition to the three quintets, one sextet, two tercets and others, all intended for pure string ensembles. Even greater still is the proportion of chamber music works in Kurtág's oeuvre, although his orchestral works were often written for smaller ensembles and reduced instrumentations. Ultimately, the intimate, austere quality of chamber music is more in keeping with Kurtág's artistic nature, who thinks less in terms of large formats, but rather developed his own unique style with sound material reduced to microscopic cells. <br<
For the present recording, their first for ECM, the Parker Quartet combines the Six moments musicaux, Op. 44 and the Officium breve, Op. 28 – Kurtág's String Quartets No. 3 and No. 4, if you will – with Dvořák's String Quintet No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 97, for which Kim Kashkashian has taken over the second viola part. And here, within the musical facture, the compositional means, in the sound complexion, the paths of these two composers, who represent two musical eras, diverge.

As with basically all the works of György Kurtág, who scrupulously concentrates and condenses the means and tools of composition, these two string quartets are made up of the smallest musical gestures, timbres and fragments – all of convincing consistency. They are replete with allusions to persons close to him, works and events of the past and present, from which the composer's aesthetic points of orientation can be derived: Beethoven, Olivier Messiaen, the pianist and piano teacher György Sebök, the Hungarian poet Endre Ady, Samuel Beckett, Leoš Janáček. And Anton Webern, of course, with his minimum of notes and maximum of expression as a consequence.

These examples of sonic artistry, concentrated around the essential, frame Antonín Dvořák's late String Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 97. Like the other works written at the same time, during the composer’s "American period", its attractiveness hails from the natural, almost blossoming melodicism as well as the concise rhythm. Brahms, the Czech composer’s mentor of many years, took note of Dvořák’s unpretentious sense for melody, and his apparently never-ending power of invention. © ECM New Series

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Kurtág: Six moments musicaux; Officium breve / Dvořák: String Quintet, Op. 97

Parker Quartet

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Six moments musicaux, Op. 44 (György Kurtág)

1. Invocatio [un fragment]