Against The Grain does Kurtág and Janáček

Jacqueline Woodley is fantastic in Kurtág's Kafka-Fragments, and had an equal partner in violinist Kerry DuWors. It's one of the longest works by Kurtág, almost an hour straight, consisting of epigrams and bits of correspondence and diaries that Kafka left behind, sparsely accompanied by one violin. It's an extraordinary work, recordings and performances of which are always deserving of our attention. The instrument is not as much accompanying as doing its own thing against the voice. This tug-of-war only rarely subsides into mutual toleration. The text fragments are enigmatic and moving throughout. Kafka speaks through a woman's voice, which pleasantly complexifies things. ("We are all Kafka", told me a lady I met at the intermission. She has a point. Had the work been written for a dude, it would have been a lesser work.)