György Kurtág (Hungarian: [ˈɟørɟ ˈkurtaːɡ]; born February 19, 1926) is a Hungarian composer of modern classical music and a pianist. According to Grove Music Online, his style is influenced by composers such as Bartók, Webern, and, to a lesser degree, Stravinsky. His work is known for using small groups and short pieces, and for expressing emotions directly and clearly. In 2023, he was described as "one of the last living composers connected to the important postwar European avant-garde movement."

Kurtág taught piano at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music from 1967, later also teaching chamber music, and continued teaching until 1993. For many years, Kurtág and his wife, Márta, performed together on a single piano, playing selections from his ten-volume collection Játékok and his transcriptions of music by Bach.

Life and career

György Kurtág was born on February 19, 1926, in Lugoj, Romania, to Jewish Hungarian parents. He learned to speak Hungarian, Romanian, and German when he was young. At age 14, he took piano lessons from Magda Kardos and studied composition with Max Eisikovits in Timișoara. In 1946, he moved to Budapest and became a Hungarian citizen in 1948. There, he began studying at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where he met his wife, Márta Kinsker, and composer György Ligeti, who became a close friend. His piano teacher at the academy was Pál Kadosa. He studied composition with Sándor Veress and Ferenc Farkas, chamber music with Leó Weiner, and theory with Lajos Bárdos. He graduated in piano and chamber music in 1951. He married Márta in 1947, and their son, György, was born in 1954. He received his degree in composition in 1955, with a viola concerto that won the Erkel Prize.

After the Hungarian uprising in 1956, Kurtág planned to leave the country, like Ligeti, but faced difficulties. He lived in Paris from 1957 to 1958, a time that was very important for his development. There, he studied with Max Deutsch, Olivier Messiaen, and Darius Milhaud. He discovered the plays of Samuel Beckett and the music of Anton Webern. He felt very sad and said he felt like a cockroach trying to become human. He received help from art psychologist Marianne Stein, who encouraged him to use simple musical elements, such as tiny tonal connections arranged like mosaics, and musical gestures like a breath or a sigh. This helped him recover and grow as an artist.

After returning to Budapest, he listened to Ligeti’s Artikulation and Stockhausen’s Gruppen in Cologne. The string quartet he composed in 1959 after returning to Budapest was a major turning point in his career. He called it his Opus 1.

Kurtág worked as a répétiteur at the Bartók Music School (1958–63) and at the National Philharmonia in Budapest (1960–68). In 1967, he became a professor of piano and later of chamber music at the Franz Liszt Academy, where he taught until 1993. During this time, his students included Zoltán Kocsis and András Schiff.

Kurtág’s first international recognition came in 1968 when his largest work to date, The Sayings of Peter Bornemisza, was performed by Erika Sziklay and Lóránt Szűcs at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. The response was not positive and was overshadowed by Stockhausen’s Musik für ein Haus. His international recognition grew in 1981 with the premiere in Paris of Messages of the Late Miss R.V. Troussova for soprano and chamber ensemble.

Kurtág has written a few orchestral works, such as Stele for the Berlin Philharmonic and Messages, but his main works are fragments, bagatelles, moments, games, and splinters. He composed an opera, Fin de partie, based on Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, which premiered at La Scala in Milan on November 15, 2018, eight years after the original commission.

Kurtág has taught master classes in chamber music. Since the early 1990s, he has worked abroad more often. He was a composer in residence at the Berlin Philharmonic (1993–95) and the Vienna Konzerthaus Society (1995). He lived in the Netherlands (1996–98), again in Berlin (1998–99), and in Paris (1999–2001) after being invited by Ensemble intercontemporain, Cité de la Musique, and Festival d’Automne.

Kurtág and his wife lived near Bordeaux from 2002 to 2015, when they moved back to Budapest. They performed together for 60 years in concerts, for radio, and in recordings. The couple played pieces from Kurtág’s ten-volume collection Játékok and Bach transcriptions. They appeared in 2004 when Kurtág was the featured composer of the Rheingau Musik Festival. When he received the gold medal from the Royal Philharmonic Society in London in 2013, they performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. A reviewer for The Guardian wrote:

Márta died in October 2019.

Music

Scholar Rachel Beckles Willson noted that Kurtág composes carefully and slowly. In 1985, when he was 59 years old, he had completed only 23 works, and several others remained unfinished or were taken away for changes.

Kurtág’s compositions often include many short movements. For example, Kafka Fragments is a 55-minute song cycle for soprano and solo violin, made up of 40 brief movements that set texts from Franz Kafka’s writings, diaries, and letters. Music journalist Tom Service described Kurtág’s music as focusing on very short pieces or movements, sometimes lasting only seconds or a minute or two. His piano piece Flowers We Are, Mere Flowers, from the eighth volume of Játékok ("Games"), contains only seven notes. Because of this focus on small musical ideas, Kurtág’s work is often compared to that of composer Anton Webern.

Before Stele, Op. 33, written for the Berlin Philharmonic and Claudio Abbado, Kurtág’s compositions were mostly vocal solo and choral music, as well as instrumental music ranging from solo pieces to works for chamber ensembles of increasing size. Since Stele, several large-scale compositions have premiered, including Messages, Op. 34, New Messages, Op. 34a, and the double concerto …concertante…, Op. 42.

Starting in the late 1980s, Kurtág composed works in which the placement of instruments in space plays an important role. His piece … quasi una fantasia… for piano and ensemble (1988) was the first to explore the idea of music that surrounds the audience spatially.

Kurtág’s music is often described as a dialogue with poets such as Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, and Anna Akhmatova, as well as composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Alban Berg. He has referenced these artists in his work and written homages to honor their art and ideas.

Most of Kurtág’s music is published by Editio Musica Budapest, some by Universal Edition, Vienna, and some by Boosey & Hawkes, London.

Recognition

Kurtág has received many awards, including the title of Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1985, the Kossuth Award from the Hungarian government for his lifetime achievements in 1973, the Austrian Ehrenzeichen in 1996, and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 1998. He is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (both since 1987). In 2001, he was named an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2006, he received the Grawemeyer Award for his composition …concertante…, Op. 42, for violin, viola, and orchestra.

In 2024, Kurtág received the Wolf Prize, an international award given in Israel. The award recognized his contributions to the world's cultural heritage, which are described as fundamentally inspirational and human.

In 2014, he was honored with the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of Contemporary Music. The jury praised his work for its "rare expressive intensity." The citation noted that the "novel dimension of his music" comes not from the materials he uses but from its spirit, the authenticity of its language, and the way it connects spontaneity with reflection and formalism with expression.

The Ensemble Modern and soloists performed his works Opp. 19, 31b, and 17. In February 2006, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, the Budapest Music Centre held a festival in his hometown to honor him.

On February 19, 2026, Kurtág turned 100 years old. A festival celebrating his music took place in Budapest, including the world premiere of his second opera, Die Stechardin, dedicated to his wife. He was present at the event.

Awards

The individual received the following awards and honors:
• Erkel Prize in 1954, 1956, and 1969
• Kossuth Prize in 1973
• UNESCO's International Rostrum of Composers in 1983
• Music Prize of the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation in 1993
• International Antonio Feltrinelli Prize in 1993
• Composers Award of the State of Austria in 1994
• Denis de Rougemot Prize of the European Festivals Association in 1994
• Kossuth Prize for Lifetime Achievement in 1996
• Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 1997
• Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 1998
• Honorary Prize for Art and Science of the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin in 1999
• Pour le Mérite for Science and Art in 1999
• Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award in 2000
• John Cage Award in 2003
• Sonning Award in 2003 (Denmark)
• Grand Cross of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 2006
• University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2006 (U.S.)
• Honorary member of the Union of Composers and Musicologists from Romania in 2008
• Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale for lifetime achievement (53rd International Festival of Contemporary Music; 2009)
• Zürich Festival Prize in 2010
• Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal in 2013
• BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Contemporary Music in 2014
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015
• Rolf Schock Prize in 2020
• The Wolf Prize in 2024
• Franz Liszt Academy of Music in 2026