A Kurtág-enciklopédia
The Kurtág-encyclopedia

Summary/Abstract: Both chapters of this study aspire to clear up a dual problem that proceeds, on the one hand from the pragmatic aspect of the critic, and on the other hand from the philosophical interest of the aesthete. Consequently, the problem expounds not less a point than the examination of György Kurtág’s oeuvre, treating the theoretical and practical possibility of his ”opus magnum”, within the frame of his work, which – though small in its volume – is extremely concise. One aspect of the problem poses the following question: is it possible to emphasize any piece of a significant oeuvre in a way that it can, in itself, claim to be regarded as encyclopedic? The other aspect, however, raises the question: if there is such, which of Kurtág’s work might be considered to be of encyclopedic character? Following the track of the classical Kurtág-reception, the first half of the essay supposes that the six-volume cycle ”Játékok” (Games) might be the Kurtág-encyclopedia. In the light of Michel Foucault’s exposition concerning encyclopedism, this thesis is ruled out and the heterotopic character of ”Játékok” is justified, the latter placing it, instead of the encyclopedic genre, with that of a diary.The second chapter offers a new possibility of interpretation, not figuring hitherto in the Kurtág-research, of a work composed on a text by Beckett, entitled ”What is the Word”. It is presenting the drama of a lady-singer, who, suffering from aphasia, is fighting for words and sense, (or rather with words and sense). In his interpretation, the author of the essay seems to discover in Kurtág’s composition a specific answer to the problem of classical encyclopedism.

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