Work: Kafka Fragments, Op.24

This enticing ensemble of soprano and piano trio evoked, delighted and expressed with heightened intensity in less well-known repertoire, including from some big names.

“The moonlit night dazzled us. Birds shrieked in the trees. There was a rush of wind in the fields. We crawled through the dust, a pair of snakes.”Maybe the pair of snakes is Franz Kafka, the author, and György Kurtág, the composer who set this short passage (along with 39 others by Kafka) to music.

Many writers dream of having letters after their name, particularly if those letters are -esque. The idea that one's prose style prompts recognition and imitation has an obvious appeal. Few could have been more surprised at attracting this suffix than Franz Kafka (1883–1924) who, having had no novels published in his lifetime urged, without success, the posthumous destruction of his opus.