NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Gerstein / Gilbert

Proximity and distance

The work opens with a simple, descending C major scale. Only the white keys of the piano – familiar yet somehow alien. The »obvious« appears as if observed from afar – the five groups of musicians are positioned around the room with distance, both historic and spatial, between them. György Kurtág’s »… quasi una fantasia …« from 1988 is as if written for a pandemic-ravaged society. The work is about alarming nightmares, beautiful memories that have lost their context, and the constant oscillation between physical distance and proximity. »Wie in Traumeswirren« (Like the Confusions of a Dream) is the title of one movement, which the Hungarian composer borrowed from Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, while the name »quasi una fantasia« was taken from Beethoven’s piano sonatas.