Pianist Márta Kurtág, György Kurtág's wife, his companion of inspiration and creation, passed away on October 17, 2019. She was 92, of which she spent 72 years on the side of her husband. She was the first critic of every composition in progress, the first consultant of every single musical idea, and a performing partner in Kurtág's piano works for solo and duet.

We bid farewell to the composer Miklós Kocsár, a teacher of generations, and a respected figure in the musical public life, who passed at the age of 86. His career began with chamber music, especially music for wind instruments.  He wrote songs, cantatas, masses, oratorios, orchestral pieces and solo instrumental pieces, while a considerable proportion of his œuvre consists of choral compositions. His works are sung worldwide; he was a celebrated composer for choirs, guest of honour at choir competitions. Many of his choral pieces were composed to verses by Hungarian poets; at different periods of his life, the works of different poets have occupied his attention. He composed his works for children's choir to verses by Sándor Weöres; in his pieces for female and mixed choirs, he has used verses by Gyula Juhász, László Nagy, Imre Csanádi and Sándor Kányádi, among others.  Characteristic features of his compositions are his quest for beauty of sound and his insistence on strict formal proportions.

Máté Balogh's Alabama March was commissioned by the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra of Alabama. The premiere will take place on September 27, 2019, in Huntsville. We asked the composer about composing for orchestra, his relationship with tradition, and the meeting of different cultures.

The J. F. Kennedy Center of Washington D.C., among other Hungarian artists, awarded György Kurtág this year's Gold Medal for the Performing Arts. Deborah F. Rutter, president of J. F. Kennedy Center, emphasized at the ceremony, held at the US Embassy in Budapest, that György Kurtág's music influenced people across continents.

Dortmund Konzerthaus celebrates György Kurtág in five concerts between 2 and 6 February 2020. The series Zeitinsel (Time Island) reviews the output of “the last living great composer of the 20th century.” Besides vocal and instrumental chamber music, the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra performs Grabstein für Stephan, a work for guitar and instrument groups, as well as Stele for big orchestra. Such experienced performers of Kurtág’s music will contribute as the Arditti String Quartet, playing four quartets by Kurtág, or Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who blends piano pieces of the Games with Bach. Caroline Melzer will sing Scenes from a Novel and other songs.

The Canadian Bozzini String Quartet presented Hungarian chamber music to the Montréal audience at three concerts in early April. Most of the works have been presented as first performances in Canada. Besides one work of older masters, György Ligeti and György Kurtág (… pas à pas – nulle part…), respectively, László Vidovszky (12 String Quartets) and Gyula Csapó each had a string quartet, and the last night’s program included three works by Zoltán Jeney.

Four months after its premiere in La Scala, on March 6, Kurtág’ Fin de partie was revisited in the Dutch National Opera. The cast was identical with that of the world premiere: Frode Olsen (Hamm), Leigh Melrose (Clov), Hilary Summers (Nell) and Leonardo Cortellazzi (Nagg); the Nederlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by Markus Stenz, the performance was directed by Pierre Audi.

In 1933, at the time of the Great Depression, Hungarian musician Rezső Seress wrote the hit Gloomy Sunday, which soon became world famous. In connection with the adhering urban legends, the song is known as a Hungarian Suicide Song. The title of this song was borrowed by Gergely Vajda’s new orchestral composition, which was premiered on February 11 by the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Grand Hall of the Budapest Academy of Music.

On 16 February, Ensemble intercontemporain premiered Máté Bella’s Hesperus for viola and chamber ensemble at Radio France's Présence Festival. The composition was commissioned by EIC, soloist was Odile Auboin, the concert was conducted by Dylan Corlay.

The model for the Wolf-temperiertes Klavier, as the title might suggest, is Johann Sebastian Bach’s keyboard cycle Das Wohltemperirte Clavier. In line with this, Péter Wolf’s collection of 24 piano pieces uses each of the twelve notes of the octave from C to B as home keys (both major and minor) for the movements. It differs from the Bach work in having no fugues, only freely composed praeludia, or as Chopin would have called them, preludes. Péter Wolf is more strongly linked to Chopin and the Romantic and twentieth-century prelude tradition he engendered than directly to Bach, insofar as etude-like virtuoso movements are interspersed with meditative, sentimental pieces in a series that takes us through the world of 24 keys, and the piano technique required is closer to the age of Romanticism than to the Baroque.