Kurtág-töredékek

The nearly hundred-year-old György Kurtág is not only the most famous contemporary Hungarian composer, but also a unique phenomenon internationally. The genius living in the attic of the Budapest Music Center is wheelchair-bound, but at the same time completely fresh mentally. Taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the music center, his days are filled with unwavering work. The most respected musicians from all over the world visit him to submit themselves to a mentally and professionally demanding, extremely humbling work process, where they work on just a few minutes of a piece over several hours.

Silver Bear-winning director Dénes Nagy and his film crew provide an insight into Kurtág’s life in a way that the director was not at all interested in the possibility of a conventional biographical film. The cameras do not only show the composer at work or with his family. During the multi-year and multi-country filming, the crew, in addition to Kurtág’s immediate surroundings, also visited the Reykjavík homes of Icelandic pianists Víkingur Ólafsson and Halla Oddný Magnúsdottir and the Cornwall seminar of British cellist Steven Isserlis. Thanks to this large-scale and extremely intimate documentary, which was dreamed of for the big screen from the very first moment, we can better understand the importance of contemporary art and feel the constant doubt that torments the greatest artists.