György Kurtág, on receiving the Order Pour le mérite in Berlin, spoke about his long friendship with his compatriot György Ligeti. German speakers can read the speech in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung; there's an English excerpt at Sign and Sight. Very moving is the passage in which Kurtág juxtaposes the ending of the Poème Symphonique for 100 Metronomes — that seemingly comic, in fact deeply serious piece — with Ligeti's last moments, as reported by his wife Vera and son Lukas. Elsewhere Kurtág says: "I'd like to tell him what I've finally discovered in his works after decades. Perhaps there are correlations that only I've discovered. So many things I'd like to ask. Sometimes his later works give answers, but other times it seems hopeless, because he's not here to explain them." (Via Peter Stamos.) By the way, the program I'm anticipating most keenly next season is the Berlin Philharmonic pairing of Kurtág's Stele and Mahler's Tenth. Can time end twice in one night?
