György Kurtág, Johann Sebastian Bach, Márta Kurtág

In Memoriam Haydée is the film of a concert given by György Kurtág and Márta Kurtág at the Cité de la musique in Paris on 22 September 2012. Pieces from Játékok (Games), the open cycle of piano miniatures Kurtág began in 1973, alternate with his transcriptions of Bach for piano four hands. The whole programme was dedicated to the memory of the musicologist Haydée Charbagi (1979-2008), a close friend of the couple.

Kurtág was 86 at the time of the concert, and he and Márta had played this repertoire together for decades. ECM had already recorded them in 1996 for the album Játékok, released in the New Series. Here the camera follows a full recital of 43 items. György plays the solos at the start, Márta takes a long central group alone, and the Bach transcriptions and many Játékok pieces are for four hands. The film was directed by Isabelle Soulard for LGM Télévision, in association with the Cité de la musique, and licensed to ECM.

Most pieces last less than a minute, and several are tributes. Kurtág opens alone with Adieu, Haydée I. Then the two sit together for Bach's chorale prelude Nun komm' der Heiden Heiland and for Aus tiefer Not schrei' ich zu dir, played in memory of the poet János Pilinszky. Márta's solo group includes Campanule, Thistle and Merran's dream, and later three homages to Ferenc Farkas. The Sonatina from Bach's Actus tragicus, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, is heard mid-programme and again as the last piece. Hommage à Stravinsky - Bells also returns near the end.

Of an earlier Játékok concert by the pair, The New Yorker wrote: "Notes were placed with surgical care; inner voices gleamed in crystalline patterns." Reviewing this film in BBC Music Magazine in 2015, Ivan Hewett gave it five stars and called it "80 minutes of the gentlest and most refined music-making imaginable". He also found these quiet performances no less intense for their calm, and the film lets the viewer see how closely the two listen to each other.

DVD, ECM New Series 5508, released on 20 February 2015: 16:9 NTSC picture, stereo sound, 82 minutes, region-free.