György Kurtág’s “Stele”: A Musical Epitaph
If Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio, is a story of imprisonment and heroic rescue, Hungarian composer György Kurtág (b. 1926) takes us deeper into the dungeon in his 1994 orchestral work, Stele, Op. 33. Stele is a Greek word for a decorated slab used as a tomb stone or commemorative monument. Set in three brief movements which unfold without pause, Kurtág’s Stele is a sombre musical epitaph for Hungarian composer, conductor, and teacher András Mihály (1917-1993). …
