"It's Not My Ears That
Do My Hearing"
György Kurtág Interviewed by Bálint András Varga
We met late in 1971 or early in 1972 when I joined the staff of Editio Musica Budapest to promote its catalogue of contemporary Hungarian music. There was not much to promote as far as Kurtág was concerned-apart from his huge and hugely difficult 'Concerto' for soprano and piano, The Sayings of Péter Bornemisza, there were a number of miniatures, many of them featuring the cimbalom, an instrument that had not yet found adequate interpreters in new music ensembles outside Hungary.
He was not easy to come close to and it took me some time to gain his confidence. Nor was it easy to find a key to his personality, combining sensitivity, pride, vulnerability but also demanding unquestioning loyalty. I think I eventually did manage to become part of his outer circle of, well, "friends" would certainly be wrong, "allies" might do better.
In the late 70s and early 80s, when I embarked on a project which led to the book 3 kérdés-82 zeneszerző (3 Questions-82 Composers), published in 1986, I naturally approached Kurtág with a request for an interview. He hated interviews and never gave any; he felt inhibited by the presence of the microphone which he probably feared was an added, inquisitive listener noting his struggle with words, the long pauses between sentences.
Then, one day, he suddenly turned up in my office and declared he was willing to talk to me. The result was an interview which was to be for many years to come the only one he had ever given.
Of course, it was not as simple as that. I prepared a version for the book and submitted the text to him and his wife Márta.
There followed agonizing months with revisions and re-revisions and re-re-revisions, words, sentences and their order changed again and again. It only stopped when I showed signs of a nervous breakdown. So, if there is such a thing as an "authorized text", then this surely is.
It has been translated into German, French, Italian and, I think, Finnish. For some reason, this seems to be the first attempt to render the interview into English.
When Kurtág did eventually relent and he decided to face my microphone he said it was his "Hommage a Bálint" (in reference to his many hommages in the piano series Plays and Games). May this English version be an "Hommage a Gyuri" in honour of his 75th birthday. He has now been recognized as one of the few great masters in the second half of the 20th century and his birthday is being celebrated all the world over. This interview is a candle on the cake.
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Bálint András Varga
Bálint András Varga
has spent most of the past thirty years in music publishing, first in Budapest, then, since 1992, in Vienna where he works for Universal Edition. He has published a number of books, all of them interviews with musicians. His conversations with Lutoslawski, Berio and Xenakis have been published in English and German as well as Hungarian.
