Márta Kurtág was born Márta Kinsker in 1927 in Esztergom, Hungary, and studied piano with András Mihály and Leó Weiner. She taught at the Béla Bartók Music High School in Budapest from 1953 to 1963 and later taught music pedagogy at the Franz Liszt Academy from 1972. She was the wife and longtime performing partner of composer György Kurtág, with whom she gave duo recitals for six decades.

Kurtág was the first performer in post-WWII Hungary to publicly play Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations (1952), and she was a central interpreter, alongside her husband, of his Játékok piano cycle, performing it at venues including Carnegie Hall and the Library of Congress. Wikipedia describes her as of “decisive significance” to György Kurtág’s life and work. She died in 2019.