The centerpiece of the performance, Sayings and Cracks, is György Kurtág’s The Sayings of Péter Bornemisza, Op. 7 (1963-1968), a milestone work in postwar Hungarian music. In an extremely condensed forty-five-minute score, Kurtág composes a unique concerto for voice and piano: twenty-four short movements organized into four cycles – Confession, Sin, Death, Spring – in which the sayings of the 16th-century persecuted Hungarian preacher Péter Bornemisza become an almost explosive physical and mental experience.

In Stylianos Dimou’s new piece, Through the Cracks of Bornemisza, commissioned by the GNO Alternative Stage, a direct dialogue with Kurtág’s work is developed. Nine miniatures, alternating between acoustic and mixed electroacoustic writing, are interpolated within the “cracks” of the work’s movements, while four prerecorded recitations by a soprano in Greek translation serve as introductions to the distinct cycles.