Kafka Fragments: Claire Booth & Tamsin Waley-Cohen

What is Kafka Fragments?

Kafka Fragments is an intense and intimate late-evening concert featuring György Kurtág’s extraordinary song cycle Kafka Fragments, presented as part of the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival at the Playhouse.

The work comprises 40 short musical settings drawn from the writings, diaries and letters of Franz Kafka, many of them deeply personal and confessional. Lasting around 60 minutes, the piece unfolds as a sequence of sharply contrasting moments rather than a single continuous narrative.

Who is performing?

The performance is given by two outstanding soloists:

• Claire Booth (soprano)

• Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin)

Scored solely for soprano and violin, the music demands exceptional precision, emotional range and intimacy between performers — placing the audience very close to the raw expressive core of the work.

What makes this piece special?

Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments is renowned for its sparse, lyrical beauty and emotional intensity. In just a few notes or gestures, it can move from dreamlike surrealism to sharp irony, sardonic humour, and moments of profound vulnerability.

The fragments capture the full scale of the human experience — fleeting thoughts, existential doubt, tenderness, and dark wit — making this one of the most striking and uncompromising works in 20th-century vocal music.

Who is this event for?

This concert will particularly appeal to:

• Contemporary and modern classical music fans

• Listeners interested in literature-inspired music

• Audiences who enjoy intense, late-night performances

• Anyone looking for distinctive, thought-provoking things to do in Sheffield

🎟 Tickets and full event details:
https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/kafka-fragments