György Kurtág

The idea of composing 'Games' was suggested by children playing spontaneously children for whom the piano still means a toy. They experiment with it caress it attack it and run their fingers over it. They pile up seemingly disconnected sounds and if this happens to arouse their musical instinct they look consciously for some of the harmonies found by chance and keep repeating them. Thus this series does not provide a tutor nor does it simply stand as a collection of pieces. It is a possibility for experimenting and not for learning 'to play the piano'.Pleasure in playing the joy of movement - daring and if need be fast movement over the entire keyboard right fromthe first lessons instead of clumsy groping for keys and the counting of rhythms - all these rather vague ideas lay at the outset of the creation of this collection.

1. Basic Elements 2. Exercises 3. Perpetuum mobile (objet trouvé) 4. Prelude and Waltz in C 5. Palm Stroke (1) 6. Palm Stroke (2) 7. Wrong Notes Allowed (1) 8. Wrong Notes Allowed (2) 9. Flowers We Are, Frail Flovers... (1a) 10. Dot-strumming 11. Flowers We Are, Frail Flowers... (1b) 12. ...flowers also the stars... 13. Out and In (1) 14. Objet trouvé (2) 15. Elbows 16. Hommage a Verdi (sopra: Caro nome che il mio cor) 17. Walking 18. C's Night Song 19. Little Chorale (1) 20. Toddling 21. Staggering 22. Staggering 23. Bored 24. Rocking 25. Hommage a Bartók 26. Let's Be Silly 27. (silent palms) 28. Hommage a Kocsis Zoltán - Playing with Overtones (1) 29. Sound Eclipse 30. Hommage a Máriássy István - (detecting chords) 31. The Bunny and The Fox 32. Legato 33. Waltz (1) 34. Hommage a Farkas (1) The Stone-frog Crawled Along... 35. Hot Cockles 36. Flowers We Are... (2) 37. Fifths (2) 38. (the young boxer's lighter moments) 39. (sleepily) 40. Portrait (1) 41. (five little piano pieces) 42. Three-finger Play 43. Gallop 44. Boisterous Csárdás 45. Jerking 46. Sound and Sound-ball (1) 47. Melancholic Overtones 48. Little Chorale (2) 49. Flowers We Are... (3) 50. Sound and Sound-ball (2) 51. Sarabande 52. Out and In (2) 53. (scherzando) 54. Fifths and Fourths and Palm Strokes 55. (Hommage a Beethoven) 56. Playing with Overtones (2) 57. Falling Asleep 58. Scale from One to Eight 59. Knots (1) 60. Flowers We Are... (4a) 61. Flowers We Are... (4b) 62. Meandering Tune 63. Twittering 64. Quarrelling (1) 65. Dumb-show (Quarrelling 2) 66. Mikro-rondo 67. Hommage a Ligeti 68. Sidling Palms 69. Beating (3x3 - 3 tones, 3 rhythm patterns) 70. Hommage a Tchaikovsky 71. Hommage a Eötvös Péter 72. Hommage a Paganini (la nuova campanella) 73. Preliminary Exercises to the Hoquetus 74. Hoquetus 75. Perpetuum mobile (objet trouvé) 76. ...and once more: Flowers We Are...