Announcing the release of Péter Wolf's Wolf-temperiertes Klavier

The model for the Wolf-temperiertes Klavier, as the title might suggest, is Johann Sebastian Bach’s keyboard cycle Das Wohltemperirte Clavier. In line with this, Péter Wolf’s collection of 24 piano pieces uses each of the twelve notes of the octave from C to B as home keys (both major and minor) for the movements. It differs from the Bach work in having no fugues, only freely composed praeludia, or as Chopin would have called them, preludes. Péter Wolf is more strongly linked to Chopin and the Romantic and twentieth-century prelude tradition he engendered than directly to Bach, insofar as etude-like virtuoso movements are interspersed with meditative, sentimental pieces in a series that takes us through the world of 24 keys, and the piano technique required is closer to the age of Romanticism than to the Baroque.

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Announcing the release of Zoltán Kodály: Choral Works for Mixed Voices

Universal Music Piblishing Editio Musica Budapest is proud to announce the release of the extended and revised edition of Zoltán Kodály: Choral Works for Mixed Voices.

Seventy-five years after their first release, the time has come for Kodály’s collected choral works for mixed voices to appear in a completely new, expanded edition. This collection contains six compositions that were not included in earlier editions. It is printed in a slightly larger format than previous editions and is available in a hardcover version as well as a softcover version for practical purposes. We whole-heartedly recommend the canvas-bound edition to libraries, collectors, and Kodály enthusiasts alike.

This is the most complete and most authentic collection of Kodály’s mixed choruses to date, and it contains new easily-legible music scores and an informative epilogue written by Péter Erdei.

More information on the publications can be found here.

Kurtág's opera Fin de partie premiered in Teatro alla Scala

Kurtág, listening to Beckett

This year, the 27th Milano Musica Festival – connected to Kurtág’s opera Samuel Beckett: Fin de partie, to be presented at La Scala on November 15th – focuses on the oeuvre of György Kurtág. From October 21st to November 26th, 22 concerts provide an overview of the composer's work: instrumental and vocal pieces, chamber and orchestral music. The festival presents Kurtág's conversations with his forerunners and contemporaries (Bach, Schubert, Bartók, Stravinsky, Ligeti) and the emergence of important topics of modernity in his art. In connection with the opera, special attention is paid to the works related to Beckett's writings, such as What is the Word or Pascal Dusapin’s Watt for trombone and orchestra.

Gergely Madaras with the Kurtág-couple and György Kurtág Jr.

At the opening concert, La Scala's orchestra was directed by Gergely Madaras. György Kurtág Jr., who also played on synthesizer, presented Zwiegespräch, written together with his father; the  original string quartet parts of Kurtág have been set for orchestra by Olivier Cuendet. In this composition – as one of the critics claimed – "two ways of thinking and performing music" came into dialogue with each other. Two days later Quartetto Prometeo performed Italian premiere of some compositions for string quartets (Secreta – In memoriam László Dobszay, Clov’s last monologue) besides Hommage à András Mihály – 12 microludes and 6 Moments musicaux.

György Kurtág Jr. and Gergely Madaras in La Scala (photo by Margherita Busacca)

In the forthcoming concerts in November there come performances of such well-known compositions like Messages of the Late R. V Troussova (sung by Natalia Zagorinskaya, directed by Andrea Pestalozza) and rarely heard works, such as the choir compositions Omaggio Luigi Nono and the Eight Choruses to Poems by Dezső Tandori (the vocal ensemble Les Cris de Paris is directed by Geoffroy Jourdain).

A vocal chamber concert with Sophie Klussmann encompasses almost four decades, presenting Seven Songs on poems by Amy Károlyi and Einige Sätze aus den Sudelbüchern von Georg Friedrich Lichtenbergs, followed by Scenes from a novel. Particular attention should be paid to the concert of the RAI Symphony Orchestra, in which Heinz Holliger conducts Stele and Pierre-Laurent Aimard presents the world premiere of some piano pieces from the forthcoming 10th volume of Games for piano.

Works for clarinet by Gergely Vajda on a new CD

New signing: Alessio Elia

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Kurtág – Cuendet: Games for ensemble has been published

György Kurtág has barely written instrumental works for chamber ensemble, a formation otherwise favored by contemporary composers. Hence, the arrangements of the Swiss composer-conductor Olivier Cuendet from Kurtág’s emblematic collection for piano, Games, represent a significant enrichment of the repertoire. The sequence of 34 pieces can be performed consecutively as an inherent cycle or in different combinations. “The selection is highly subjective – writes Cuendet –, some pieces sounded orchestral already to me when I played them on the piano, others spoke to me through their simplicity or complexity.” These arrangements, authorized by Kurtág, use a flexible orchestration whose range reaches from 4-5 instruments up to a full ensemble of ca 15 musicians.

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Announcement

Universal Music Publishing Group is pleased to announce that the printed music publishing and distribution business of its Hungarian affiliate Universal Music Publishing Editio Musica Budapest Zeneműkiadó Kft. has been transferred to a new entity, Editio Musica Budapest Zeneműkiadó Kft. EMBZ will be owned and managed by a group led by UMPEMB Director of Printed Music László Sigrai. Long-time UMPEMB Managing Director Antal Boronkay will also participate in the direction of EMBZ.

EMBZ will distribute all existing UMPEMB printed music products, and will work closely with UMPEMB to continue to develop new high-quality printed music products in both physical and digital form for the educational and performance markets. EMBZ will also continue to distribute sheet music products of other publishers.

For information, please contact:

For UMPG: Tünde Szitha, szitha­@­emb.hu, www.umpemb.com

For EMBZ: László Sigrai, sigrai­@­emb.hu, www.emb.hu

The well awaited 9th volume of GAMES by György Kurtág is published

Works by Kurtág, Eötvös and young Hungarian composers in Zürich

The beginning of Máté Balogh’s, Máté Bella’s, Péter Tornyai’s and Balázs Horváth’s musical career is in many ways tied to Péter Eötvös, who was their driving force in the past few years. It is therefore no surprise that the majority of the programme of the Peter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation’s (which Eötvös founded in 2004) concert in Zurich on 26 June consists of works composed between 2010 and 2016 by these young composers. Jam Quartet by Máté Balogh, Chuang Tzu’s Dream by Máté Bella, QuatreQuatuors by Péter Tornyai will be performed for the first time in Switzerland, pikokosmos = millikosmos by Balázs Horváth will be premiered in Zurich. The audience in the Tonhalle will hear the music of three generations. Apart from the Swiss premiere of Eötvös’s da capo (Mit Fragmenten aus W. A. Mozart’s Fragmenten), Kurtág’s Brefs Messages will also be performed. The program is conducted by Eötvös himself, performed by the THReNSeMBle, the ensemble of the Contemporary Music Foundation.

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Premieres in Frankfurt – The Works of László Tihanyi and Gergely Vajda