György Kurtág completed Hommage à Mihály András—12 Microludes Op. 13 for string quartet in 1978. This is his first string quartet since 1959. The composer wrote very little in any medium, to the extent that it is surprising that any musician can be regarded as such with so little product to demonstrate the fact. Kurtág is hardly demonstrative; he is a quiet and intense man who has not had to sell himself in order to became recognized as a genius in his own lifetime. Serious composers and scholars have touted his brilliance as an indispensable voice of Middle Europe. Like his colleague Ligeti, Kurtág hails from a town in Romania, which had belonged to Hungary before World War II. While Ligeti rose to fame with a prolific and cosmopolitan ethic, Kurtág remained low-key, low-output, and though he studied with Messiaen and Milhaud, the music did not acquire international traits. Like his first quartet, 12 Microludes reflects the super-serious sounds of Webern and Bartók. This is not urbane, humorous, or cheeky music; it is more intense than perhaps anything else. Perhaps Beethoven's late string quartets compare, as do the quartets of Bartók and the atonal music of Webern. It is prickly, edgy music, reflecting an odd mix of inspiration and persecution. Nothing in it reflects comfort or lazy-mindedness and those who expect little from art will get little from 12 Microludes. Close inspection of this work will demonstrate specific approaches, ostinato figurations, chorales, folk song-like melody, etc. Each different type of style is revisited until the different ways of writing for tiny movements can be done. All twelve Microludes are between eighteen and eighty-two seconds in duration. The obvious comparison to make with such brevity for string quartet is Webern's Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9. This is not a complete picture, however, because of the visceral nature of the sound. It is not the cerebral soundscape of Webern that permeates the score. An equal measure of Eastern European folk song, wrenched into a contracted and memorable soundscape is as apparent as the super-concentrated art music purity of Webern. Bartók made music from of the folk traditions of tiny and doomed mountain microcultures. It is this simple, melodious preciousness, injected in the Webernian soundscape of aphoristic love for God and nature that makes up the innate power of these tiny movements by Kurtág.

There is so much excluded in the soundscape of this composer that it is difficult for many to approach. It has no lightness to it, nor is it funny. It is sometimes desperate but does not appeal to anyone for assistance. The composer does not seem to be advocating a larger listening base for new music when he composes; no point of reference will give the average listener much to hang on to, making the works of Kurtág an amazing discovery for those who feel that music can offer more of a vital place in someone's life. There are qualities that stand in this music as obvious truths that have never been so succinctly demonstrated before. In the 12 Microludes there is no attempt to manipulate the atmospheres. There is only a taste of something that is completely moving in the demonstration of its existence alone. As a listener, one gets to hear just enough to know that there is an enormous amount of music that one has not heard. It is desperate music as well; there is no time to develop the material. It is the sound from the underground, more beautiful that one can guess.

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