Date:
Location:
Benjamin Appl, baritone · James Baillieu, piano
What can music separated by centuries reveal when it is brought into conversation?
Baritone Benjamin Appl and pianist James Baillieu explore this question through a programme centred on the musical world of György Kurtág and his lifelong dialogue with the past. Schubert, through whom Kurtág once said he had “consciously come to music,” remained a profound presence throughout his life; yet Kurtág also spoke of a particular affinity with Monteverdi, finding across the centuries kindred ways of giving musical expression to words, silence and the most intimate human emotions.
Kurtág’s intensely concentrated songs are placed alongside works by Schubert and Monteverdi, as well as music by composers encountered in the historic library of I Tatti. Rather than following a chronology, the programme traces unexpected connections across time - between composers, poets and musical languages; between memory and discovery; between what has been preserved and what can be heard anew.
Appl’s close collaboration with Kurtág over many years has profoundly shaped his own approach to music: to question what appears familiar, to search beneath the surface, and to discover how the smallest musical gesture can contain an entire world.
The evening will begin with an introduction by Martin Brody, followed by a recital by Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu. Afterwards, Benjamin Appl will join Martin Brody and Andreas Mayer for a conversation exploring György Kurtág’s musical world, his relationship with the music of the past, and the works and connections that have shaped this particular programme.
Created especially for I Tatti, Lines Through Time becomes a musical conversation across centuries - bringing Kurtág into dialogue with composers who shaped his musical imagination, while allowing the history and collections of I Tatti to add their own, distinctive echoes to the evening.
6:45 p.m. – Introduction
7:00 p.m. – Recital
7:45 p.m. – Conversation
Reception to follow
Program:
György Kurtág - Hölderlin Gesänge
Franz Schubert - Selected Songs
Selected repertoire from I Tatti’s music library
Image: Wassily Kandinsky, Black Spot, 1921. Kunsthaus Zürich.
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