Scenes op. 39 – Signs, Games and Messages

The cycle Scenes for solo flute, written in September 1997 and dedicated to Ádám Szokolay, occupies an extraordinary place in György Kurtág's oeuvre. The premiere of the long-withheld composition was held in 2016 on the composer's 90th birthday. Each movement in the cycle reformulates familiar gestures of Kurtág's music: it develops pensive, impetuous, ethereal or playful characters.

Signs, Games and Messages are collections for solo instruments and small chamber ensembles. Each of the three words refers to an essential factor in Kurtág's music. Signs ties to the composer's study year in Paris as a young man, when he could not compose but merely put graphic signs on the paper. Games links with his nine-volume series for the piano with that title. Messages conveys the very personal content of these works, in that these short pieces are actually diary-notes and missives to musicians and friends important to Kurtág. The collection - like similar collections for string and wind instruments - does not form a coherent cycle; the pieces can be played individually, or in various orders, or together with pieces from Signs, Games and Messages written for other instruments.