An interview with

How do you prepare for a massive work like this?

I sang about half of the fragments as a student, so I was familiar with the piece, but I actually sang the whole cycle for the first time with Isabelle in 2019. The best thing is to immerse yourself in Kafka first of all, both in these fragments and also his other literature – which I’ve loved for a long time. It just lends itself to an expressionistic way of performing with the voice and it’s not hard to get into that zone, to be honest, because the music is so intertwined with what the writer wanted to express. What’s the most challenging moment for you?

There is a piece I decided I wanted to record last: ‘Nichts dergleichen’ (Nothing of the kind), in which I have to scream ‘Nein, Nein, Nein’ at the highest possible note. It’s challenging in the middle of a performance of the cycle to not over-tax the voice so that I can’t sing all the other beautiful lyrical things. In the studio you can record them in the order that you would prefer, or that the voice prefers. What was it like to work closely on this with Isabelle Faust?

It really is a big mountain, especially for the violin, because Kurtág uses all sorts of possible and impossible techniques. Sometimes I thought she must have 20 fingers and four hands to be able to actually play this stuff! Her musical heart beats in the same way that mine does, and we both try to be in touch with as many musical eras as possible, but in the most authentic way. I think this is something that really connects us both.