Premiere location: Darmstadt
Premiere date: 1960.07.10.
Premiere performers: Andor Losonczy (piano)
Composition end location: Budapest
Composition end date: 1960.05.13
Genre: Instrumental solo
Instrumentation: piano
Duration (minutes): 6
Year of publication: 1964
Publisher: Universal Edition/Editio Musica Budapest
Publication number: 14140 – ISMN: M-008-00329-5; online: UED 1414000
1. Inesorabile. Andante con moto
2. Calmo
3. Sostenuto
4. Scorrevole
5. Prestissimo possibile
6. Grave
7. Adagio
8. Vivo
It is an instrumental work with no text.
The simplest possible compositional means are used in the Eight Piano Pieces: each of the eight aphoristic movements is hardly more than the raising of a musical idea – just a gesture, nothing more. The logic behind the organisation of sounds, however, is immediately recognizable: the rhythm is either free or is based on rudimentary principles of organisation. Although the individual pieces are independent units, certain of their specific features group them in different sections within the composition as a whole, e.g. pieces one to four form a unit owing to the similarity of the organisation of their sounds; Numbers six and seven are linked as a result of their similar emotional charge, etc. The Eight Piano Pieces, then, are not merely a series of compositional etudes – each is a finished bagatelle and each is an integral part of the large form. The composition as a whole sheds a new light on the parts that make it up – pieces that by themselves might appear even primitive.
No sheet music files available for this piece.
Reviews of the Hungarian Premiere
Ferenc Bónis’s review
(Film Színház Muzsika, May 11, 1962)
[…] The second half featured two highly successful premieres: György Kurtág’s Eight Piano Pieces and Stravinsky’s In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, performed by István Antal and Sándor Palcsó, respectively, accompanied by four string and four wind instruments. Both are moving, profound works. Bartók’s influence is evident at times in Kurtág’s music (notably the sounds of The Night’s Music and The Chase), yet it also reveals a great talent with a rich and compelling message, expressed in an interesting and concise manner. István Antal performed these technically demanding pieces with enthusiastic virtuosity. […]
(“Korunk Kamarazenéje”, Film Színház Muzsika 6 (1962)/19, 22–23.)
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András Pernye’s review
(Magyar Nemzet, May 12, 1962)
[…] This time, György Kurtág’s 8 Piano Pieces generated the most interest and success, guiding listeners along the still unexplored paths of modern Hungarian music. The question naturally arises: where does this path lead? What will its ultimate consequences be, if, indeed, this series is not the ultimate consequence itself? In any case, György Kurtág cultivates the stylistic trend of punctilism – which completely shatters the melodic line and breaks the musical material down into its atoms – with masterful skill and genuine musical talent. Nor do we doubt that he listens to his innermost feelings when he believes his message can only be realized in this form, that he projects his deepest self in this ecstatic cavalcade of rhythms filled with theatrical effects – and so we must definitely distinguish him from the fashionable crowd of pseudo-modernists. It is precisely this sincerity that ensures his work truly affects the listener: it forcefully imposes the spasm, the fear, the anxiety – in other words, the composer succeeds in completely unsettling his audience. In the view of the author, however, music has always rested – both now and throughout music history – on a dual point of equilibrium: the “beautiful balance” between the individual and society. The mood and meaning of this series of piano pieces remain an exclusively private matter, even though, thanks to the composer’s artistic gifts, he can easily persuade many people to “feel anxiety with him”. Yet we cannot deny the purifying effect of art. If the artist has a genuine social conscience, he must paint the image of a person who has overcome anxiety; otherwise, he can appeal only to a small community of tense, fearful, and anxious people. Yet society is not composed of such people. […]
(“Budapest hangversenytermeiben” Magyar Nemzet 18 (1962)/109, 4.)
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János Breuer's review
(Muzsika, July 1962)
[…] György Kurtág’s Eight Piano Pieces is a work of a completely different nature. In its micro-movements, as in the string quartet heard last year, enormous elemental energies are unleashed. The fundamental musical experience here is also Bartók. Movements 2–7 of the work are essentially free, at times forming a very distant paraphrase of The Night’s Music. This work is a complex equation with many unknowns; technical analysis of its structure offers no key to its interpretation. A longer study of the works Kurtág has composed in recent years would be worthwhile, because it is in his music that the problems of contemporary Hungarian music crystallize most vividly. The fundamental inspiration for the Eight Piano Pieces, as noted, is Bartók. The “Night Music” movements have a definite content; in them, Bartók depicts the anxious visions of the lonely individual. The message of the Eight Piano Pieces is similar, though Bartók’s idea appears here many times more intense. A technical example: in some of his movements, Kurtág builds actual towers of seconds, and, compared to Bartók, he significantly expands the piano’s rangeThe problem with the work, in my view, is that it only constricts and seizes the listener but fails to release them. Bartók was still able to resolve the agonizing sound of solitude through the powerful musical intonation of the community. In Kurtág’s final movement, he does no more than deliver angry blows with his fists and elbows to the piano. Here, something characteristic, “Kurtág-esque” musical material was sorely missing – something akin to a “muscle relaxant.” The Eight Piano Pieces undoubtedly owe their elemental impact to the fact that the half-world Kurtág depicts is, in its intensity, so immense, so shattering, and so true that it is almost impossible not to pay attention to the music or to follow its inner narrative with every fiber of our being. Who would deny that, in the age of nuclear testing, this gnawing, “it hurts so much” tone is justified and legitimate? Yet it is one-sided, for life also offers other, forward-looking, happier perspectives. Part of the audience understood Kurtág’s message, while another part sensed only the sensation and the trend, so there was no shortage of rhythmic applause greeting the composer and the excellent performer, István Antal. […]
(Muzsika 5 (1962)/7, 43–44.)
No sheet music files available for this piece.
