New York Philharmonic

27 August 2012

Beautiful Music Together

In 1946 Gyorgy Kurtág — whose … quasi una fantasia … will be performed in the Philharmonic’s season-opening concert — met his wife, Marta, through her piano teacher. Kurtág played Marta some Liszt. “He played, and I thought I would like to be his wife,” said Marta. “I said, ‘Please would you like to play some pieces for two pianos?’ And in six months we were married.”

Six decades later, the Kurtágs’ love story continues to play out. The New Yorker’s Alex Ross called their 2006 Vienna performance of Kurtág’s four-hands transcription of Bach’s Sonatina from Actus Tragicus, Cantata BWV 106, ”one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard.”

Watch and listen in the video above.