Kafka Fragments Up Close, Royal Festival Hall

György Kurtág is one of the most significant composers working today. His compositions, which tend towards the literary, often seeks to embrace its audience spatially, to turn music into an almost physical presence. The Kafka Fragments (1985-6) are no exception. A series of forty elegant miniatures for violin and soprano, they set to music words from Franz Kafka’s diaries, notebooks and letters, revealing and reflecting the great writer’s psychology. There are passages of quietude and spurts of action, an incredible stew of musical ideas that evokes the scattered contends of Kafka’s mind.
In 2016, as part of the Altered Minds festival of art and psychology, the Southbank Centre is offering an extraordinary opportunity to hear the Fragments in an astonishingly intimate setting. There are no tickets for the usual seats; instead, audiences will sit on the Royal Festival Hall’s choir stalls, a hair’s breadth away from the musicians. And what musicians. Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and soprano Anu Komsi. both feted for their imaginative and characterful styles, will come together to make this performance something truly special. If post-war music is among your interests, book now – there are only limited seats available.