A one-off Festival treat: two of the world’s foremost artists, soprano Anu Komsi and violinist Sakari Oramo, perform Kurtág’s seminal work.

Kafka-Fragments explores the universal topic of wandering – a sense of reality and dreams intermingling, the seeking of a Way, and the questioning of whether there even is such a thing. Of course it follows in the lineage of Schubert’s great Winterreise, but it is a masterpiece entirely in its own right. Finnish soprano Anu Komsi is known for her “technical daring” (The Times) and her “pyrotechnic grace” (New Yorker). She is an ideal exponent of this music, in which a single instrument – the violin – accompanies her journey. It is played by the masterful Sakari Oramo, known worldwide as a conductor and also as a brilliant violinist.

Anu Komsi soprano
Sakari Oramo violin