For György Kurtág's 99th birthday, a CD has been released featuring his solo and piano accompaniment works for baritone voice, alongside songs by Schubert and Brahms. The composer wrote these introductory lines in the booklet of the recordings:
’Benjamin Appl came to the Budapest Music Centre for the first time in 2018, when we worked together on my Hölderlin-Gesänge. His amazingly beautiful baritone voice, the technical security of his singing, his beautiful stage diction and not least his endearing personality won me over from the very first moment; Márta and I took him to our hearts immediately. Since then we have worked together regularly, not only on my compositions, but also on other music: we have performed songs by Schubert and Brahms several times, merely for our own enjoyment. This recording preserves the memory of those wonderful hours. To go further, I also believe that Benjamin is currently the most authentic interpreter of my Hölderlin-Gesänge. I was very happy to have collaborated on the Budapest recordings of the works on this album and most heartily recommend the result of our joint endeavour.’
The CD features Pierre-Laurent Aimard (songs by Kurtág) and James Baillieu (Schubert) on piano, and Csaba Bencze (trombone) and Gergely Lukács (tuba) in Song 10th of the Hölderlin-Gesänge. György Kurtág plays piano for two songs (Schubert and Brahms). The video below was taken during the recording in Budapest. (EMB Archiv).
Photo © Bálint Hrotkó