Játékok is a collection of pedagogical performance pieces for piano (two hands and four hands), composed by György Kurtág

György Kurtág

György Kurtág is a Hungarian composer of contemporary music.- Biography :György Kurtág was born in Lugoj in the Banat region, Romania.In 1946, he began his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he met his wife, Márta, and also György Ligeti, who became a close friend...

 since 1973, 8 Volumes as of 2010.

Concept

It was to try to recapture something of the spirit of a child's play that Kurtág began the composition of Játékok - "Games". He started with a few ideas - set out in the foreword to the first four volumes:

Recordings

• György Kurtág: Játékok Márta Kurtág and György Kurtág piano. With Bach Transcriptions by Kurtág himself and his wife Márta. Recorded July 1996. ECM New Series 1619 (CD)

Performances

Márta Kurtág and György Kurtág have performed an always-renewing selection of pieces for two and four hands, including transcriptions. The later volumes of Játékok bear the sub-title Diary Entries and Personal Messages. This, to some extent, reveals the lineage of the unique microcosms, which irresistibly involve the listener at their recitals.

Márta Kurtág and György Kurtág played a selection as part of the Composer's Portrait of the Rheingau Musik Festival

Rheingau Musik Festival

The Rheingau Musik Festival is an international summer music festival in Germany, founded in 1987. It is mostly for classical music, but includes other genres...

, 8 August 2004, in the "Kulturforum Schillerplatz" (now "ESWE Atrium") Wiesbaden. The Bach transcriptions then interspersed with the miniature character piece

Character piece

Character piece is a literal translation of the German Charakterstück, a term, not very precisely defined, used for a broad range of 19th century piano music based on a single idea or program...

s were Aus tiefer Not (BWV 687), Sonatina from Actus Tragicus

Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit

Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit , BWV 106, also known as Actus Tragicus, is a sacred cantata composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in Mühlhausen, intended for a funeral.- History :...

, Trio sonata in E-flat major (BWV 525) and O Lamm Gottes (BWV 618).

The couple performed in Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

’s Zankel Hall in February 2009.

External links

• ECM Records page on Játékok, accessed 2 February 2010