Renee Jonker: “Every note and every interval really has a deep meaning for Kurtág”

Royal Conservatoroire teacher and director of the Société Gavigniès Renee Jonker brought the couple György and Márta Kurtág to the Netherlands in 1997, where they lived for two years. Marta Kurtág passed away in 2019. Jonker and the Kurtágs always kept in touch.

You were recently with Kurtág in Budapest. How is he doing?

“He is… in good shape. Physically he is not doing well, he is in a wheelchair. But his head is clear. It is incredible how ready he is for everything. I was with him for two days with conductor Chloe Rooke and pianist Ellen Corver to work on this weekend’s performances, such as his large orchestral work Stele, op. 33. Every note has a story with Kurtág. Look, this refers to that partita by Bach! he then shouts. Then he almost pushes Ellen off the piano stool to play from that partita, all by heart, for five minutes. Astonishing.”

Kurtág has a reputation for being very demanding. What was that like for a young conductor like Chloe Rooke?

“Kurtág is a composer for whom traditional notation falls short. There is so much meaning in his music that he cannot convey in the score. It is worth so much, when he can play and sing exactly what he intended, in terms of sound and intensity, but also, for example, in terms of the voice leading of certain chorales. Chloe is very open-minded and really wants to understand what the composer’s intentions are. Their interaction went incredibly well. It is fascinating to see that Kurtág continues to compose when he is working on a piece. And he also gave Chloe the confidence to try out certain things herself as a conductor.”

How important are the many references you mention for Kurtág?

“Very important, essential. Every note and every interval really has a deep meaning for him. The first chord of Stele, for example, literally comes from Beethoven’s Leonore Overture, one of the early overtures for what would later become Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio. The story of that opera, about being locked up in a dungeon, plays a major role in Kurtág’s mind. One note can mean three things and he wants to convey them all to you. His work is full of references. I don’t know that richness to such an extent from any other composer. And yet he has an unmistakable language of his own. It was a great struggle to develop it. He only found his language when he was already in his fifties, he says.”

Beethoven himself is also on the programme, with his Fourth Piano Concerto.

“That was Klaas de Vries’ idea. And it fits very well. Kurtág once said to me: my mother tongue is Bartók, and Bartók’s mother tongue was Beethoven. Klaas is also writing a new cadenza for the soloist, Hannes Minnaar. Beethoven forms a kind of connection between Stele and the great new orchestral work by Klaas.”

An unknown youthful work by Kurtág is also on the programme on Sunday. What kind of piece is that?

“When the Kurtágs came to the Netherlands in 1997, György was still unknown here. He came as a guest lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire, but the plan was actually that he would finally write his opera for DNO. Well, he composed all sorts of things, except that opera. But close collaborations and friendships did develop with all sorts of Dutch musicians, such as Reinbert de Leeuw and Ellen Corver. He gave Ellen a bundle of piano pieces, including a suite that he composed as a sixteen-year-old teenager and that had not yet been published. According to Kurtág, it was nothing at all – until Ellen played it to him last year. Then he became enthusiastic again. It was wonderful to see that. He had to admit that what he had written eighty years ago was not so bad after all. And the wonderful thing is: the germ of Kurtág’s style, which he developed with so much pain and effort, was already present there.”

View the full program, compiled by Klaas de Vries here. Info and tickets.