Kafka Fragments

Tickets for Harpa Oct. 29th at 16:00

The Hungarian composer György Kurtág (born 1926) completed his masterpiece Kafka Fragments in 1987. Written for soprano voice and violin to forty fragments of short excerpts from Franz Kafka’s diaries, letters and posthumously discovered texts, this one-hour adventure for the spirit and mind is one of Kurtág’s longest works. Together the forty movements create a work of extraordinary variety and emotional depth calling for technical and expressive virtuosity, with musical settings stretching from the chaotic to the lushly melodic, from the dramatic to the humorous.

Soprano Ragnheiður Ingunn Jóhannsdóttir and violinist Rannveig Marta Sarc will be performing Kafka Fragments at the Reykjavík Opera Days in two concerts in the capital area of Iceland. They have both specialised in performing modern music and recently premiered three Icelandic pieces written for Ragnheiður Ingunn and a chamber orchestra, featuring Ragnheiður as both solo soprano and conductor and Rannveig as concertmaster.

The performance is one hour.