Prom 43: Kurtág - 'Endgame' ('Fin de partie'), BBC SSO, Thurs. 17 Aug. 2023

[Master Jacques]

I wouldn't say that it's a question of "naturalness", whatever that means. It's just that I feel very strongly about the writing of Samuel Beckett, and about the various issues around setting words to music, and not just in a theatrical context. As for setting Endgame to music specifically, even before the question of pulling the precisely balanced text apart, the idea of doing so with an orchestral apparatus seems to me highly suspicious to begin with. Why not just use an out of tune piano and a broken accordion, and find subtlety and sophistication in that, as Beckett does with his pared down vocabulary (in either language)? Or write your own text, or collaborate with a playwright.

Why not indeed? I love the idea of your out of tune (pub?) piano and accordion, which is of course your act of imagination. But then, so is Kurtág's idea of union - in terms of immensely varied orchestral subtleties - with Beckett's text. We may not like it, but this is not an act of vandalism. Samuel Beckett cannot be sacrosanct, or out of bounds, any more than Schiller's plays were for musicians in the 19th century. The originals may be greater than Rossini, Donizetti or Verdi might have been able to match, but Guillaume Tell, Maria Stuarda, Luisa Miller (a shocking diminution of Kabale und Liebe!) and Don Carlos create their own, viable dramatic worlds. Which is what Kurtág tries to do here, though we might disagree on the degree to which he succeeds.

Great plays set to music without alteration: the three Greek tragedies (two in Hölderlin's German translation) by Carl Orff. Berg's restructuring of Wedekind's and Büchner's materials is extensive - but Büchner's play was in any case incomplete and fragmentary, and Lulu conflates two plays to begin with, let alone all the other ways in which the text is remoulded, but, significantly, Berg's title isn't that of either of the source plays.

In fact Orff's Prometheus does make some cuts to Aeschylus's text (as I discovered when reviewing the Kubelik recording), though I don't know what he might or might not have done to Hölderlin's German translations in the two earlier operas. With Berg, of course collectively the two Wedekind plays are known as "The Lulu plays", and Wozzeck is just one letter different from Woyzeck. Does this mean that if Kurtág had called his opera Chess Game or something, your objection to it would be milder?

[kindofblue]

I found much to enjoy in the Albert Hall on Thursday. The music added to my enjoyment of the Beckett text, there was a beautiful range of sounds and textures. The music complemented the words and never strayed into telling me what to feel. My issue is with this being a concert performance of the opera. Clov was obliged to walk carfeully on a step around the back of the orchestra, sometimes he was spotlit, sometimes not. He had to manouevre extremely carefully around the two dustbins, and the stepladder/windows moments were... unclear to say the least.. I found these elements distracting. What was missing most of all though was the feeling of claustrophobia, the impossibility of escape, that are central to the Beckett world. We also missed a great deal of the detail of the facial expressions and gestures, again so important for Beckett. These would clearly be significant challenges for a concert performance in the Albert Hall of all places, but would screen projections of the actor's faces be out of the question? I was though very moved on occasion and would most certainly re-visit in an opera house.

[RichardB]

We may not like it, but this is not an act of vandalism. Samuel Beckett cannot be sacrosanct, or out of bounds

I think one can characterise it as an act of vandalism or an inappropriate excrescence without the implication that Beckett's work, or anyone else's, is out of bounds to composers. In the end, Kurtág's conception of a stage work is just much less radical than Beckett's, which (as we've discussed before) is an issue common to most composers of "opera" in our time.

[DracoM]

[Master Jacques]

I think one can characterise it as an act of vandalism or an inappropriate excrescence without the implication that Beckett's work, or anyone else's, is out of bounds to composers. In the end, Kurtág's conception of a stage work is just much less radical than Beckett's, which (as we've discussed before) is an issue common to most composers of "opera" in our time.

Agreed: but as Kurtág is 97, I think we might be gracious enough to make the leap of imagination required, to accept this as an artefact out of its time and enjoy it on its own terms. That seems more fruitful than blaming his 'Scenes and Monologues' (he never called it an opera) for not being something it never could be. Calling his palimpsest an act of vandalism (or "inappropriate") makes a sacred rite of the original - an idea which Beckett himself would have greeted with quietly ironic smiles. He knew his play was better than that!

[Mandryka]

Here's a musical setting of Happy Days -- I prefer this to the Kurtag Endgame in fact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MMoO2l9tlU&ab_channel=xx

[RichardB]

Calling his palimpsest an act of vandalism (or "inappropriate") makes a sacred rite of the original - an idea which Beckett himself would have greeted with quietly ironic smiles. He knew his play was better than that!

It doesn't in the least "make a sacred rite of the original". I just find the whole thing sad and misconceived, whatever the age of its composer. On the other hand, Beckett himself was notoriously picky about who he would allow to do what with his work, which one might wish to bear in mind.

[Master Jacques]

It doesn't in the least "make a sacred rite of the original". I just find the whole thing sad and misconceived, whatever the age of its composer. On the other hand, Beckett himself was notoriously picky about who he would allow to do what with his work, which one might wish to bear in mind.

My point about Kurtág's age was not sentimental, but that he's a near-contemporary of Beckett's who's known the text since it first emerged in the 1950s. As for the Beckett estate, they can't have been too displeased with the composer's previous settings of their author, as they supported this project firmly. I've no doubt Beckett himself would have disliked it, but that is predictable and irrelevant. We all feel emotionally protective about literary texts we know and love well. Sometimes we know too much, which is why (for example, as a translator of Schiller's Kabale und Liebe) I can't be enthusiastic about Luisa Miller, though I do try to appreciate it for what it is, not what it isn't.

Many forumites have contributed interestingly to this debate, so I hope we can all acknowledge differences of opinion about how far Kurtág's music justifies the intrusion into Beckett's world - many of us found it moving and memorable, on its own terms - without suggesting it should never have been allowed to exist.

[RichardB]

without suggesting it should never have been allowed to exist.

I don't think anyone has made such a suggestion. "Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit" - including of course the freedom to set a groundbreakingly unconventional text to fairly conventional music using what might be regarded as overblown resources. And of course I wouldn't expect anyone to take particular notice of whatever I might have so say on the subject!

[edashtav]

I don't think anyone has made such a suggestion. "Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit" - including of course the freedom to set a groundbreakingly unconventional text to fairly conventional music using what might be regarded as overblown resources. And of course I wouldn't expect anyone to take particular notice of whatever I might have so say on the subject!

‘fairly conventional music’: never before have I heard Kurtag’s aphoristic, atomised shards described so!
‘overblown resources’ : yes, large forces, highly unusual in Kurtag’s works, but it’s a question of careful selection from an e tensive palette, c.f. Mahler
I quote from Tom Service:
“His near-perennial state of dissatisfaction with performers is the stuff of legend among musicians, but so too is the brilliance of his insight and wisdom. And any frustration with his interpreters is matched by a much deeper and more lacerating strain of self-criticism: "I never hear my ideas properly ... No one can hear it … There's nothing to be done … I felt I couldn't go on, I mustn't go on …" –“

This composer is a perfectionist, as I sense RichardB is. They whore after differential visions of that state, but I feel each has something vital to say.

To borrow from another thread, I fear that Richard has been consuming ‘Holbrooke’s sauce’.

i note that John Allison in his Daily Telegraph review gave the Proms Performance


not bad for an evening filled to the brim with fairly conventional music by an old grump!

[Ein Heldenleben]

‘fairly conventional music’: never before have I heard Kurtag’s aphoristic, atomised shards described so!
‘overblown resources’ : yes, large forces, highly unusual in Kurtag’s works, but it’s a question of careful selection from an e tensive palette, c.f. Mahler
I quote from Tom Service:
“His near-perennial state of dissatisfaction with performers is the stuff of legend among musicians, but so too is the brilliance of his insight and wisdom. And any frustration with his interpreters is matched by a much deeper and more lacerating strain of self-criticism: "I never hear my ideas properly ... No one can hear it … There's nothing to be done … I felt I couldn't go on, I mustn't go on …" –“

This composer is a perfectionist, as I sense RichardB is. They whore after differential visions of that state, but I feel each has something vital to say.

To borrow from another thread, I fear that Richard has been consuming ‘Holbrooke’s sauce’.

i note that John Allison in his Daily Telegraph review gave the Proms Performance


not bad for an evening filled to the brim with fairly conventional music by an old grump!

Is that a typo or having you been reading a lot of Shakespeare?

[edashtav]

Well, thank you EH, I’ve found three typos and I have not consulted The Bard… I suspect my greatest flaw will need more ‘prompting’:

update:
fairly conventional music’: never before have I heard Kurtag’s aphoristic, atomised shards described so!
‘overblown resources’ : yes, large forces, highly unusual in Kurtag’s works, but it’s a question of careful selection from an extensive palette, c.f. Mahler
I quote from Tom Service:
“His near-perennial state of dissatisfaction with performers is the stuff of legend among musicians, but so too is the brilliance of his insight and wisdom. And any frustration with his interpreters is matched by a much deeper and more lacerating strain of self-criticism: "I never hear my ideas properly ... No one can hear it … There's nothing to be done … I felt I couldn't go on, I mustn't go on …" –“

This composer is a perfectionist, as I sense RichardB is. They whore after different visions of that state, but I feel each has something vital to say.

To borrow from another thread, I fear that Richard has been consuming ‘Holbrooke’s sauce’.

I note that John Allison in his Daily Telegraph review gave the Proms Performance


not bad for an evening replete with fairly conventional music by an old grump!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Well, thank you EH, I’ve found three typos and I have not consulted The Bard… I suspect my greatest flaw will need more ‘prompting’:

update:
fairly conventional music’: never before have I heard Kurtag’s aphoristic, atomised shards described so!
‘overblown resources’ : yes, large forces, highly unusual in Kurtag’s works, but it’s a question of careful selection from an extensive palette, c.f. Mahler
I quote from Tom Service:
“His near-perennial state of dissatisfaction with performers is the stuff of legend among musicians, but so too is the brilliance of his insight and wisdom. And any frustration with his interpreters is matched by a much deeper and more lacerating strain of self-criticism: "I never hear my ideas properly ... No one can hear it … There's nothing to be done … I felt I couldn't go on, I mustn't go on …" –“

This composer is a perfectionist, as I sense RichardB is. They whore after different visions of that state, but I feel each has something vital to say.

To borrow from another thread, I fear that Richard has been consuming ‘Holbrooke’s sauce’.

I note that John Allison in his Daily Telegraph review gave the Proms Performance


not bad for an evening replete with fairly conventional music by an old grump!

Well to “whore after “ something means to pursue an ‘immoral or depraved end’ (Webster) . The pursuit of musical perfection might be many things but I would have thought it one of man’s and woman’s nobler aspirations.

[edashtav]

Well to “whore after “ something means to pursue an ‘immoral or depraved end’ (Webster) . The pursuit of musical perfection might be many things but I would have thought it one of man’s and woman’s nobler aspirations.

aha -There’s the nub. Used in Webster’s sense it is too strong , an I apologise to the two composers. I was thinking of whoring as analogousto worshipping, in this Biblical context from the Book of Exodus
“Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;

Surely, ‘whoring after false Gods’ is often used, today?

[Ein Heldenleben]

aha -There’s the nub. Used in Webster’s sense it is too strong , an I apologise to the two composers. I was thinking of whoring as analogousto worshipping, in this Biblical context from the Book of Exodus
“Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;

Surely, ‘whoring after false Gods’ is often used, today?

The Webster dictionary definition is derived form the Exodus quote surely. “Whoring after a false God” is an immoral and decadent act and breaks one of the Ten Commandments . Whatever Kurtag and RB are doing it’s hardly a sin - quite the reverse really. Perhaps trying to add to the sum total of human enjoyment? Do you really think a search for perfection is a false god ? Although working with perfectionists can be difficult aren’t most talented artist and performers perfectionists? In other words they try to give their very best and demand that others do the same.