Here are some excerpts from the Jatekok Duo Steiner school performance of kurtag vol 4 on 9th October 2026
It has been wonderful to learn and perform Jatekok vol 4 pieces during kurtag’s centenary year. It has also been wonderful to introduce aspects of kurtag’s method of composition to children at the Steiner school
Our Thanks to teacher Rachel Davies who was such an important part of the day and we were able to work with 3 year groups. Thanks also to Yifat Simpson who helped organise.
The children wrote a 4 line story which they then interpreted musically. They worked on a blank extended score and used Kurtag’s graphic notation which we introduced before this.
It was lovely to see some of the children again at our concert and we had clearly aroused some interest.
It was great that Eleanor Davies-Clegg and Cornelia Faye Tompkin played pieces from book 2 of Játékok and Thanks go to their piano teacher Rachel Davies for encouraging this. They gave performances at the service of the music and without self-consciousness despite their young age.
Kurtág wrote the first 3 books of Játékok (Games)as pedagogical pieces for children (not that they couldn’t be played by adults). It is clear that the music promotes confidence and gives a valuable and enjoyable experience for performers and audience. However Kurtag is not saying that his piano method is the way to learn the instrument, but it encourages expressive detail and a whole body approach to playing and having fun with the instrument,which I think valuable given how tense and restricted early learning on the piano can be.
In the second half of our programme it was nice for the Duo to show some of our own wide-ranging interests. For me it was to play 8 of Chick Corea’s ‘Children’s Songs’ which fuse child-like melodies with an interesting eclectic piano style. Simon-Mary then thrilled the audience with some beautiful pieces including her exciting improvisational style.
As a Duo we would very much like to create a similar project elsewhere and the York Steiner experience was very encouraging in this regard.
Finally on book 4 I thought the grouping of the pieces (in threes)with an address between each ’set’ giving the audience an introduction to key aspects of the pieces,worked well and we think enhanced the enjoyment overall.
Judging by how well the performance was received (clear from the clips above) we succeeded in our aim to communicate what might be at first hearing, difficult and challenging music.