... the bouquet of varied marvellosities that is this:



I defy anyone to listen to this entire disc, or even most of it, and then avoid the welling up of tears when you
come across the last track, Kurtag's arrangement of the Sonatina from the Actus Tragicus for muted four-hands piano, with the composer and his wife at the keyboard.  It's not a matter of contrast, not just that what precedes the Bach arrangement is (mostly) atonal and sometimes noisy and always capricious; it's that, after an hour of Kurtag, there is a profound sense that some gear somewhere has merely slipped a notch, that a slight change of perspective is all that it takes for Kurtag to return to Bach.  It's a breathtaking effect.

Pleased to be spinning a harpsichord recital by Luigi Tagliavini -- actually on many different harpsichords. Special highlights are the pieces played on his 'Octave Spinet' from 1617.

I wonder if harpsichordists who own more than one instrument talk about them using the word 'gear' ... the best would be if they made publicity shots like this:



..only with keyboards sticking out every which way.

I don't know, actually (I don't have that disc either). I do have a recording, but it's on a 'funeral music playlist' put together for me by a certain Serbian composer I think you know, when he was in what even by his standards must have been a particularly macabre mood.

I'd love to sympathise with your Hungarian-induced puzzlement, but one of the skeletons I haven't let out of my closet before on this board is that I tried to teach myself a number of unusual languages as a teenager, and that was one of them. The only thing I can now remember how to say is "Sájnos csák egy kicsit tüdok magyarul" ("Unfortunately I only speak a little Hungarian"). I've learned from experience that if you say this too well no one will believe you.

Yes it is on the ecm disc. I've hd much enjoyment playing that Actus tragicus duet as well as the other Bach/Machaut/Purcell/Schutz arrangements for pno duet by Gyorgy...excellent stuff...and I agree with you about the effect after Kurtag's own music Evan....

Heads up:



Cripes! Don't think I've ever heard a quartet tear into Bartók (the 5th quartet) like this. And that's saying something.

---

PS: Andrew Clements:

"Bartok's Fifth from 1934 receives a surprisingly relaxed performance, recorded in a resonant acoustic that takes the edge off its acerbic moments."

You what?

Were we sent the same disc I wonder?

Oh well. Hurrah for Meinungsvielfalt. I suppose if he ever reads my review of that Bartók he'll go a bit as well.

You're hard when it comes to metaphors, I see... 

Shortly afterwards this was spinning.



Now it's this.



Although my copy (bought in Germany) has not Orchesterwerke sondern Concerts à plusieurs instruments. And not Caf sondern Café. Komisch.

Strange. Well, all the copies in the warehouse behind me have the French cover like yours, if that's any comfort.

Here it's about to be this, which turned up from Amazon yesterday and was waiting for me when I got home (too late, alas, to set it spinning last night):