The University of Rochester Press published my three interviews with the composer in 2009.34 In my introductions to the conversations, I poured out my love for his music in a rather effusive manner. What is there left for me to say?

In the early 1980s when I was in the middle of collecting material for this book, I also approached him. I forget what his initial reaction was but it is a fact that one day he turned up in my office at Editio Musica Budapest and said he was ready to reply to my questions, as a kind of “hommage à Bálint.” He, a composer of numerous musical homages (and two tributes in writing, in honor and in memory of his friend, György Ligeti) consented to give me what must have been his very first interview, in recognition of my promotional work on behalf of his music.

In the three years that followed, we worked on the text time and again. Kurtág or his wife would ring me to suggest a different phrase, a different order of paragraphs, the omission or addition of sections of the text. Their painstaking effort to chisel at the text to make sure it reflected exactly what the composer meant gave me an idea of the way he worked on his music. I carried out their wishes dutifully and initially with great pleasure—until one day in 1985, I felt I had reached the end of my tether. The Kurtágs gave in and accepted the interview in the form you will find below. This interview has been translated into several languages: for many years, it remained the only one of its kind, the only one to be quoted from if one needed an authentic statement by the composer. It has also been included in the University of Rochester Press Kurtág book of 2009.

By the nature of things, the manuscript had to be brought to a close at one point, but life, Kurtág’s life, has gone on. It has done so with the lessons drawn from his breakdown in November 2007 conveniently (predictably? irresponsibly? happily? alarmingly?) forgotten.