Varga Bálint Ligaturája (2007)

One of Kurtág’s many tributes to friends and fellow musicians, Varga Bálint Ligaturája was written to mark the retirement of Bálint Varga after 36 years in music publishing. He had worked first with Editio Musica Budapest and then with Universal Edition in Vienna, at the same time collaborating on a valuable series of books with Lutoslawski, Berio and Xenakis and in 3 Questions – 82 Composers achieving the singular distinction of publishing the first ever interview given by the notoriously publicity-shy György Kurtág.

Varga would obviously have been delighted to have a score dedicated to him by composer of such distinction but, as a long-term associate, surely not mystified by the title, “Bálint Varga’s Ligature.” Several of Kurtág’s titles contain the word “ligatura,” which refers to the sign combining closely connected notes in medieval mensural notation but also to the sequences of harmonies to be found in the toccatas of Frescobaldi, a Kurtág favourite. Perhaps the best-known earlier example is another tribute, Ligatura: Message to Frances-Marie, which amounts to a slow procession of string chords relieved only by the entry of a celesta at the end.

Though very different in sound, Varga Bálint Ligaturája is based on the same sort of material. It is scored for piano trio with the cello and violin all but silenced by practice mutes and the piano, an upright, muted by a supersordino, which holds down the ”soft” pedal throughout. The result is that even when the dynamic intensity rises to f or above it is still quiet and when it falls to pppp at the end it is scarcely audible. The work, which lasts less than four minutes, begins with a series of chords “dragging” (molto strascinato) in an even minim rhythm on all three instruments and sounding as if from the far distance. Gradually, however, there is more rhythmic activity and the action gets nearer, rising to a brief central climax. After a pause, it is resumed at a ppp level, the cellist tuning the C-string down a semitome. In spite of semiquaver figuration in the piano part, the sound remains “mysterious” and “shadowy,” dying almost completely away in the closing bars.

Varga Bálint Ligaturája was first performed by the Vienna `Piano Trio in the Vienna Musikverein on 29 November 2007.