Liszt Fest Magazine 2023

DEAR AUDIENCE,

We are preparing for a unique occasion, the Hungarian premiere of an extraordinary work. The fact that it took György Kurtág decades to complete his opera Fin de partie is in itself extraordinary. Although the idea for the work was conceived in 1957, when the master saw the first production of Samuel Beckett’s play, it took decades to attain its final form. The composition of the opera was a gradual process, and consequently every note is golden and the end result breathtaking. Beckett’s minimalist play has only four characters: few words are spoken, and silence plays a key role. This is what lends such importance to Kurtág’s interpretation: the rhythms and emotions he employs, his humour, the shockingly unsettling feeling evoked by the notes, precisely when needed. It is also extraordinary that the same orchestra and singers have worked with Kurtág since prior to the work’s premiere in Milan until the present day – and they are now joined by a Hungarian artist, Zsolt Haja. We visited Kurtág repeatedly over the years to permit him to develop each sound, inflection

or nuance over a long series of orchestral rehearsals and workshops. Following the world premiere in Milan, the opera was staged in Amsterdam, Valencia, Paris, Belgium and Germany, but Kurtág was unable to travel to any of these venues. Now, however, he joins us at the Hungarian premiere. My heart races at the mere thought of this gift, and I can scarcely wait to once again experience the warm, welcoming atmosphere that you create in the wonderful concert hall of Müpa Budapest.

Markus Stenz

Markus Stenz

| Photo: Kaupo Kikkas

Five

EXPERIMENTS FOR SEVENTEEN VOICES

A unique talent for creating atmosphere, an artful mode of narration, well-considered ideas and subtle humour: these are some of the salient traits of Diána Vonnák’s prose, which over the past few years has deservedly propelled her into the top echelon of contemporary Hungarian literature. Látlak (I Can See You), her 2021 collection of short stories, which won the Margó Prize for best first volume the following year, holds surprises even for readers well versed in contemporary prose.

One key to the originality of Vonnák’s voice is an outlook that eschews established literary patterns. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, with a focus on the politics of memorials and cultural heritage in Ukraine, her approach as a researcher also informs her literary work. Her writings and translations of works by Serhiy Zhadan, Margaret Atwood, Tracy K. Smith, Lesik Panasyuk, Galina Rimbu, Lyuba Yakimchuk and Iryna Shuvalova, among others, have appeared in prestigious Hungarian literary journals and foreign periodicals alike. Also publishing in English, her many reports and analyses of the war in Ukraine have made an essential contribution to a deeper understanding in Hungary of international cultural politics.

Diána Vonnák | Photo: Botond Wertán

Armed with a profound knowledge of multiple cultures, the striking feature of Vonnák’s literary debut is the unusually high degree of freedom in its prose. Ranging widely in their geographical settings, from Northern Scotland through Ukraine, Tibet and Hungary to the Middle East, the stories in I Can See You lead us into a prose world where readerly routines are invalidated and begin to be replaced by a more open-minded interpretative approach. The volume constitutes a set of experiments for seventeen voices, each story presenting the world of its characters from a different perspective, with its own distinct mode of delivery. The narrators represent different genders, age groups, nationalities and social statuses. The characters include a well-off programmer, a middle-class Hungarian office worker, a mother in southern England entering menopause, an adolescent with an eating disorder, a scholarship-winning architect and a struggling Ukrainian surrogate mother. All the characters are fleshed out with a great degree of sensitivity, and in most cases the stories grant us intimate access to them. Some of the hardest-hitting stories deal with physical vulnerabilities: with the sensations of menopause, the causes and psychological effects of self-starvation, the serious dilemmas surrounding abortion, or experiences related to the sexualized body. The volume throws such consequential issues into sharp focus, but does not take a moralizing stance – leaving this task to the reader.

Routinely beginning with a strong visual image, each story in I Can See You introduces the reader to its world without reference points regarding its setting or the identity of its characters. The story then unfolds gradually, with details of the characters and their relationships conveyed in a deliberately slow manner. The withholding of information – which cannot but arouse the reader’s interest – is an effective device of Vonnák’s short stories. Additionally, the author sometimes engages in a play with media, introducing some of the stories with photographs – her own snaps which, through their connection to reality, contribute to establishing the narrative world.

11. 10. 2023, 8pm

Müpa Budapest – Glass Hall

AN EVENING WITH DIÁNA VONNÁK

Featuring: Zsófia Szamosi, Zsombor Jéger – prose, Ian O’Sullivan – guitar Host, director: László Valuska

Given the central themes of Vonnák’s writings, it is little wonder that reviewers of I Can See You tend to focus on the theme of strangeness. The dualities of the strange versus the familiar, and of the self versus the other, offer convenient ways to approach the texts, but what makes the collection fresh is that its stories dismantle wellknown stock narrative solutions and tried-and-tested dichotomies in original ways, casting them in a new light. The author deftly handles a literary form that is well suited to the sensitivity of her chosen themes. This volume of taut, concise short stories fits organically within the international tradition of the form. There is an original tone and carefully crafted poeticism to each of Vonnák’s stories. In keeping with the intricacy of the ideas, her prose is complex, the language precise and incisive, whether she is describing an embrace after a long separation (“we stand a moment longer than we should, I am enfeebled and short in his embrace, my proportions all wrong”) or the ruminations of a surrogate mother (“too late to change my mind, because that someone has long taken root, has a heartbeat, is kicking; the same blood circulates within us, and yet it’s a stranger”).

Reading Vonnák’s work is a special experience: the stories at once elicit intellectual excitement, anxiety, a sense of liberation and a feeling of space. Nor are the stakes in this literary experiment slight: her short stories have a powerful capacity to reveal how our prejudices work, but they also reveal the beneficial value of empathy.

Diána Márjánovics

…readerly routines are invalidated and begin to be replaced by a more openminded interpretative approach.

SCENES AND MONOLOGUES

“Finished, it’s finished” – begins the main action of György Kurtág’s opera, Fin de partie. The audience may have every reason to think that for a work first performed in 2018, this opening may also reflect on the twilight of a period in music history. For almost five years after its world premiere, Kurtág’s opera, based on Samuel Beckett’s play, is finally being staged in Hungary.

News reports preceding the premiere found it sensational that the world-renowned Hungarian composer only began writing his first opera at the age of 84, and then worked on it for eight more years. But this superficial information tells us nothing about the piece itself. Having opened at La Scala in Milan, it was performed in Amsterdam, Valencia and Paris. After its New York premiere was postponed due to the pandemic (and remains to be performed there), it now falls to Budapest to stage the opera.

The setting is post-apocalyptic, where not only is the outside world uninhabitable, but where human relationships, too, are on their last legs. Two of the four characters peer out of dustbins, while the other two engage in a conversation that signifies complete hopelessness. The scene is a room without furniture, with two small windows high up, one overlooking the barren

György Kurtág Photo: János Posztós

land, the other the sea. The characters bide their time in this confined space; or to put it another way, this is the chessboard of their destiny, where what unfolds is already the endgame, and where each move determines the next. The characters have no will of their own; they may have fond memories of the past (nostalgia being a beautiful thread in Kurtág’s music), but they have never been in control of their own lives. “Do you believe in the life to come?” – asks one. “Mine has always been that,” answers the other. Black humour thus brings some light into the dark, depressing world of this absurd drama.

Like the works of the greatest masters of opera, Kurtág’s composition creates a unity of words and music, bringing to life the characters’ emotions, gestures, moods and states of mind. Not for the first time in his career, the master of miniatures and small forms dared the impossible by creating a one-act opera that lasts over two hours, since Beckett’s play is both extremely musical (as its author claimed) and a perfect whole in itself. What is more, Fin de partie, with its subtitle “scenes and monologues,” has less plot than Bartók’s Bluebeard; the dialogues have no definite direction, and the whole process is like a succession of fragments. But then, for some inexplicable reason – call it the magic of music, experience or genius (and despite Kurtág utilising only 40 of the 100 pages of the drama) – we ultimately feel we have arrived at our destination. For if we are willing to descend into the deepest recesses of existence, an uplifting experience awaits.

The orchestration is at least as much the work of a master as the arrangement of the notes and their meticulous proportions. Exciting juxtapositions, combinations and unique, unusual blends of tone add a varied richness to the score, constantly surprising the listener with astonishing new touches. When the celesta, harp, upright piano and sordino (muted) strings are sounded simultaneously with three types of flute, diverse subtle background noises on percussion instruments, accordion (used surprisingly often) and timpani (acting like a quartet), the result is often an acoustic miracle.

12. 10. 2023, 7pm

Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall

GYÖRGY KURTÁG: FIN DE PARTIE (ENDGAME) – HUNGARIAN PREMIERE

Concert performance

Hamm: Frode Olsen

Clov: Zsolt Haja

Nell: Hilary Summers

Nagg: Leonardo Cortellazzi

Music assistant: Szabolcs Sándor

Featuring: Danubia Orchestra

Conductor: Markus Stenz

Composed of short, powerful and sometimes tender gestures and punctuated by pauses, the piece is the ultimate challenge in ensemble playing for both conductor and orchestra, where the latter is generally treated as a chamber ensemble. Only the task of the singers is more difficult, as not only do they need to sound complex melodies and motifs with Kurtág’s signature intensity, but they also have to produce human sounds outside the range of music, such as when a burst of laughter turns into a painful moan. (Kurtág repeatedly complements or expands on Beckett’s stage directions, making him all the more the co-author of the piece.) Three of the four great singers from previous performances – Frode Olsen, Hilary Summers and Leonardo Cortellazzi – will also perform in Budapest, joined on this occasion by the no less excellent Zsolt Haja. Markus Stenz, who conducted the world premiere in Milan, takes the podium again here to direct the Danubia Orchestra, an ensemble that took an active part in preparations for that very first performance of the work.

Tamás Várkonyi

Like the works of the greatest masters of opera, Kurtág’s composition creates a unity of words and music.

MARGÓ LITERARY FESTIVAL AND BOOK FAIR

AMPLE MARGIN

Wide or narrow are the two adjectives traditionally associated with a margin in its original sense, but for the series of literary events that have given a new meaning to this word since 2011, “ample” seems more appropriate. This October’s Margó Literary Festival and Book Fair will make this evident more than ever, with an unprecedented multitude of foreign authors in attendance and many compelling names to represent the diversity of world literature: from Icelandic authors Jón Kalman Stefánsson and Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir to Slovenian Vesna Lemaić, Romanian Andrei Dósa and Brazilian Luiz Schwarcz. By bringing into play the interfaces of music and literature, rap and poetry, the series of events at the National Dance Theatre validate this appealing concept of ampleness, from the joint show of János Lackfi, Anna Szabó T. and Szilárd Balanyi (from the band Quimby) to the performance of Slow Village. Last but not least, an electrifying diversity characterises the list of Hungarian authors introducing their new books, including such names as Lajos Parti Nagy, Dániel Varró, Eszter Babarczy, Tamás Jónás and former Margó Prize winner Anita Harag.

Ferenc László

ART MARKET BUDAPEST

DISCOURSE

When an event is being organized for the thirteenth time, it suggests a unique combination, a strong connection between tradition and innovation. Although Art Market Budapest was launched in the midst of the economic crisis of the 2000s, it has grown to become the largest international contemporary art and photography fair in Central and Eastern Europe. Last year, exhibitors from more than forty countries on five continents presented thousands of works. Of course, the intimate environment of a gallery never attracts such a large audience, but Art Market Budapest is both a place where new fans, art lovers and potential buyers are educated with special events, and an annual meeting point for artists, professionals and institutions. This year, with an eye on innovative forms of art trade, the spotlight will fall on young market players from non-metropolitan areas who are addressing new generations with a fresh attitude and imaginative solutions, but who often do not get the attention and support they need. Contemporary Roma art will be brought conspicuously into focus across all the various events and over hundreds of square metres occupied by exhibitors from six countries, from the renowned Nadine Gandy Gallery to events in sister arts, and as the leading theme of the Inside Art conference, all in order to deepen the discourse aimed at defining and affirming the place of contemporary Roma art.

Balázs Bihari

1. Photo: Gábor Valuska

2. Photo: Fanni Hermán

3. Nick Hakim

19–22. 10. 2023 Bálna

12–15. 10. 2023 National Dance Theatre

1.

14. 10. 2023, 5pm

Akvárium Klub

ISOLATION BUDAPEST

A SPECIAL KIND OF ECLECTICISM

A festival within a festival in every square inch of the Akvárium Klub: following its successful inauguration last year, for a day Isolation Budapest again brings together an eclectic but equally open-minded line-up of international and Hungarian exponents of soul, jazz, punk, garage rock, lo-fi hip hop, contemporary theatre and club anthems. The American Nick Hakim, whose work straddles psychedelia and soul, and who has collaborated with Anderson Paak and had a song remixed by BADBADNOTGOOD. Wu-Lu, who toured with Blur this spring, layers different musical styles to create a dynamic yet claustrophobic world, and it is similarly difficult to attach a label to London producer COUCOU CHLOE and her club hymns, which she may very well have written on the space shuttle between Trappist-1e and Earth. Casper Clausen, the singer of Efterklang, a band that made its Budapest debut at last year’s Isolation, returns as the lead in a play celebrating the rediscovery of intimacy. The Wild Stage is a show that melds pop, electronica and baroque, where the singers and musicians turn into dancers. Ma Estrela is a project that explores the relationship between jazz and dark electronica, while Pom Poko is a group of Norwegian jazz musicians playing math rock fused with post-punk and West African rhythms. More than twenty years after its release, Panchiko will present one of the most mystical albums of the 2000s for the first time in Europe, while this year also sees the Budapest debuts of garage rockers Iguana Death Cult and Chubby and the Gang, with their short, catchy hardcore punk songs. Surprises also abound among the local offerings. Known for his process music, konkoi teams up for the occasion with Gergely Balla of Platon Karataev fame, while The Night Of the Vampire presents The Chet Baker Special, with Soma Nóvé’s take on Baker’s jazz ballads. Up-and-comers are represented by the experimental hip hop of the Wavy collective and by Darage, who fuse the alternative music of the eighties and the beat music of the sixties in the same production.

Balázs Bihari

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA TOO! S OCIAL MEDIA

THE STORY IS ETERNAL, ONLY THE SCENERY CHANGES

With Castles, Warriors, Frontiers, the Hungarian National Dance Ensemble, as the Company of the Season, is set to premiere an action-packed dance drama set in the time of the Ottoman occupation of Hungary. Director and choreographer Zoltán Zsuráfszky has already created several productions from stories dedicated to this historical period, and this time the show – and the accompanying music by Benjamin Eredics of the same title – draws on István Fekete’s novel The Testament of the Aga of Koppány, with the addition of a modern plot thread.

How does the production present István Fekete’s adventure story? The scenario for the award-winning work in Müpa Budapest’s Composition Competition was written by Zsuzsa Zs. Vincze, technical director of the Hungarian National Dance Ensemble. The work was premiered as a concert of the Bartók Spring at the Liszt Academy, and the Liszt Fest now presents it as a dance drama. From this autumn, our ensemble will be Company of the Season at Müpa Budapest, and this will be our first show in this capacity. It’s a self-contained dance drama, with two plotlines: in one, we see the behind-the-scenes life of a company, with dressing-room small talk and the like, while they rehearse The Testament of the Aga of Koppány. In this way, István Fekete’s classic is intertwined with the contemporary theatrical milieu and today’s conflicts, from which we both enter and exit the story. We don’t want a classic, grand historical tableau, although we do like to put on such shows and have produced several dance dramas set in the same period, but this will be a little bit different. I’ve long wanted a dance drama to offer a little glimpse behind the scenes.

Hungarian National Dance Ensemble

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Photo: Szilvia Csibi / Müpa Budapest

How did the music for the production evolve?

In addition to the music of Benjamin Eredics, we sought to embed the dance drama in a diverse context of folk music, which is typical of the artistic work of the ensemble. We have a complex production in mind, with prose, songs, dance and a varied musical fabric, given that the characters include not only Hungarians but also Serbs, Croats, Germans and Turks. This is also reflected in the music, as much as in the dances, since the dancers of our ensemble are also very familiar with the original dance material.

What fascinated you about Fekete’s novel?

When I was young, I was more attracted by the film based on the book, which starred Ferenc Bessenyei and Péter Benkő. However, the period has always fascinated me because it shaped our dance culture in exciting ways. You have the sword dances that represent the struggle of the Turks and the Hungarians, and these are included in the play. The novel concerns itself with a number of essential human principles that remain relevant today: respect for difference, for each other, even when the other is an opponent, is a key motif. I don’t want to update the work, but the salient characteristic of eternal human stories is that they can be set in any time and will retain their validity.

…István Fekete’s classic is intertwined with the contemporary theatrical milieu and today’s conflicts…

What is your concept for the visuals?

We will have two kinds of set: the spaces of the playwithin-the-play, and the backstage, the dressing rooms of the theatre. Essentially we plan to use projection as it offers the most vivid representation of the many different locations without complicated set changes. We entrusted the design of the visuals to Marcell Iványi, whose job is to work out and smoothly coordinate the projections and the changes in a creative way. I’m proud to say that we have an excellent team, and since we’re the largest dance company in the country, with 120 to 140 shows a year both across the country and abroad, we act as a close-knit group when it comes to staging this production for a young audience.

14 and 15. 10. 2023, 7pm

Müpa Budapest – Festival Theatre

HUNGARIAN NATIONAL DANCE ENSEMBLE: CASTLES, WARRIORS, FRONTIERS – PREMIERE

Music: Benjamin Eredics

Choreographers: Zsuzsa Zs. Vincze, Zoltán Zsuráfszky

Co-director: Zsuzsa Zs. Vincze

Director: Zoltán Zsuráfszky

So is it a show aimed primarily at younger people?

I think the adventure story itself is largely aimed at young people, and the brief was to create a show that would appeal to secondary school students as much as to their parents. Also, the novel is compulsory reading, and to present it through dance in a colourful, stimulating adaptation can bring what is a sometimes antiquated story closer to young people.

Many of your productions feature large-scale scenes. Can we expect to see some of these when the armies march or engage in combat? Absolutely. When I was choreographing Eclipse of the Crescent Moon for the National Theatre, I immersed myself in the zeybek, the Turkish dance of the Caucasus. But what is always problematic in plays set many centuries ago is the role of women. The authors usually had male heroes in mind, and women were given far lesser roles, but we try to give nuance to the female characters of the story – if only to make it possible to include partner dances. Müpa Budapest’s Festival Theatre is an extremely well-equipped venue, which lets our imaginations run wild in terms of sound or lighting. And while we hope to be able to take the production on the road, for the time being we want to dream up a dynamic, spectacular and contemporary reading of Fekete’s story for the Liszt Fest.

Gerda Seres

LEADING LIGHTS OF WEST COAST JAZZ’’

The nineteen-piece Clayton–Hamilton Jazz Orchestra is well known in Hungary through recordings, but this is the first time the band, as part of its Jazz Power & Soul tour, has brought its captivating, upbeat music to a local live audience.

Bassist John Clayton (b. 1952) founded the big band in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s together with his brother, alto saxophone and flute player Jeff (1954–2020), and drummer Jeff Hamilton (b. 1953). They all shared a deep respect for the traditions of big band jazz, which is hardly surprising given their family backgrounds and professional pedigrees. Striving for the kind of “top league” sound established by the orchestras of Count Basie, Woody Herman and Thad Jones, the founders put their faith in an inventive but playful performance mode. This commitment to their music remains the hallmark of the band to this day.

Prior to forming this outfit, the Clayton brothers led several bands, some of them together. John Clayton and Jeff Hamilton’s friendship dates back to their twenties, when they formed the rhythm section of a trio with Jamaican-born piano prodigy Monty Alexander. All three founders went on to work in famous big bands, their longest stints being in the groups of Basie and Herman. Although Gerald Clayton, John’s 39-year-old son, is not a member of this ensemble, he has played in Clayton family bands, for a musical dynasty such as the Claytons will sooner or later want to share the joy of their “home sessions” in public. For John and Jeff, the inspiration likely came from their mother, a church organist, who encouraged them to study music.

John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton and Jeff Clayton

Jeff Hamilton has been a hugely sought-after drummer throughout his career, working mostly in Los Angeles, where the big band was founded. When it comes to the birth of something new in the world of jazz, New York is usually the first to make the headlines, but the recording and film studios of Los Angeles have provided and continue to provide many a musician with a steady living, allowing them the freedom to come together and seek out new directions while heeding only their own instincts and taste. Two years ago, the prestigious JazzTimes magazine named the Clayton–Hamilton Jazz Orchestra “among the leading lights of West Coast jazz.”

Family and professional traditions alike have strengthened the big band’s originality and craftsmanship, effortlessness and precision. They have worked with an amazing array of singers and instrumentalists. Pianist and singer Diana Krall, for example, has featured the Clayton brothers on ten of her albums, and recorded a Christmas album together with the big band. The ensemble also memorably accompanied Charles Aznavour, while their recording with Modern Jazz Quartet vibraphonist Milt Jackson was a defining moment. Guitarist John Pizzarelli, who continues the classical tradition while honing his playful sound to perfection, is another name on a long list of likeminded collaborators. Indeed, a full list of those whom the big band’s founders have joined in the studio or on stage over half a century would fill a fat encyclopaedia of jazz. John won a Grammy Award for his arrangement of a song for Queen Latifah, while Jeff Hamilton, also formerly a member of the L. A. Four, has made dozens of recordings as a bandleader with an amazing line-up of soloists. Budapest jazz fans may have first heard him in 1989, as a member of the Marlboro Superband.

The third founder, studio and session saxophonist Jeff Clayton, enjoyed a similarly distinguished career until his passing three years ago. Immediately after graduating, he joined Stevie Wonder’s band, and the degree of sophistication achieved there would continue to mark the rest of his career. He and his brother formed the Clayton Brothers in 1977, while both played in the Count Basie Orchestra, first under the ageing bandleader, and then with his successor Thad Jones. Speaking of bandleaders, we might ask why the Clayton–Hamilton Jazz Orchestra needed three leaders. The answer is that a division of labour was established from the start: Hamilton the drummer set the tempo, most of the arrangements were the work of John, and Jeff was responsible for most of the solo improvisations.

The Clayton–Hamilton Jazz Orchestra often invites guest artists to perform on stage. Its tour of prestigious European venues (including Amsterdam, Hamburg and Stockholm), of which its concert at the Liszt Fest in Müpa Budapest is a part, will feature Akiko Tsuruga on the Hammond organ. Of the founders, Hamilton was the first to play with the organist, who has lived in New York since 2001. Educated in Japan, Tsuruga became convinced she wanted to play the organ at the age of three. When the time was ripe, Dr Lonnie Smith became an important mentor, and his opinion of her was not reserved: “Akiko’s playing is like watching a flower blooming, a bird spreading her wings in the music world. Akiko is here to stay.” It speaks volumes of Tsuruga’s funky style of playing that for several years she played with legendary saxophonist Lou Donaldson, and she continues to be a favourite in many New York clubs.

As is often the case on tour, the Clayton–Hamilton Jazz Orchestra is inviting another soloist to its Budapest concert in the shape of Gigi Radics. This should not surprise anyone familiar with the singer’s voice and performance style. A winner of the musical talent contest Megasztár, Radics has released several pop videos and has also performed in musical theatre. The legendary producer Quincy Jones (who led his own big band for many years before working with Michael Jackson) met the Hungarian singer at the Montreux Jazz Festival and invited her to the United States, where she recorded an album and sang at internationally renowned gala events. There is thus every reason for her to regard Jones as her mentor.

Kornél Zipernovszky

13. 10. 2023, 8pm Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall

CLAYTON–HAMILTON JAZZ ORCHESTRA: JAZZ POWER & SOUL FEAT. GIGI RADICS & AKIKO TSURUGA

They have worked with an amazing array of singers and instrumentalists.

INNER PEACE

In the world of modern classical and neoclassical music, whose popularity has grown steadily for over a decade now, it is not difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, original talent from empty imitation. Much of the latter has been scattered into the wind, while there is precious little of the former. The Polish Hania Rani clearly belongs to the former category: her meditative, passionate, charismatic piano playing and her ability to create atmosphere are exceptional.

Hania Rani

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Photo: Martyna Galla

Born in 1990, Hanna Raniszewska studied to be a classical musician, attending music schools in Gdańsk and Warsaw. Her classical piano playing was tinged with jazz while she was still a student, and her later works justifiably bring to mind the early Keith Jarrett. Writing music for piano, electronic keyboard instruments (which she also plays), strings and vocals, she is building a diverse œuvre as a composer and performer that incorporates post-minimalism (Philip Glass), ambient, contemporary classical and even electronic dance music. But the main direction of her growth is most clear through her compositions for keyboards, which are captivating, personal and sophisticated, evoking a wide range of moods with sensitivity, and sometimes supported by her vocals.

Hania Rani recorded her first album (Biała Flaga, 2015) together with a childhood friend, cellist Dobrawa Czocher. It featured engagingly intimate piano and cello arrangements of songs by their rock heroes, the justly popular Polish band Republika. Some of the pieces were original compositions by Hania, and they promised a bright future. By the time of the duo’s second album (Inner Symphonies, 2021), which featured only their own compositions and was released on the most prestigious German label, Deutsche Grammophon, Rani had become an established artist. In view of her talent, this fast track to success was perhaps not all that surprising. Following two years in Tęskno, an art popchamber pop duo that released a single album, Mi (2018), Rani found her own voice. With two solo albums released in quick succession on the acclaimed Gondwana label (Esja, 2019; Home, 2020), and her impressive live performances, she had become an international star of her genre.

Esja is a series of solo piano pieces, with sensitive songs and notes dancing under Rani’s fingers. While it’s difficult to pinpoint what makes these pieces more effective than the compositions of many other neoclassical pianists, the sincerity of the compositions may well be the key. Not that pretentiousness would be the hallmark of the artists of Gondwana Records, which releases music on the borderland between spiritual jazz and contemporary classical music (by artists such as Matthew Halsall, Portico Quartet, GoGo Penguin, Svaneborg Kardyb and Sunda Arc). Likewise, the label did not miss its mark with this Polish talent. Hot on the heels of her first solo album, Rani’s 2020 album Home made it clear the former had not been a oneoff feat. “I strongly believe that when being in uncertain times and living an unstable life we can still reach peace with ourselves and be able to find ‘home’ anywhere. This is what I would like to express with my music – one can travel the whole world but not see anything. It is not where we are going but how much we are able to see and hear things happening around us,” said the pianist at the time of the album’s release. By then, she had added her voice to several of the songs, as well as subtle electronic sounds to compositions featuring guest musicians. In concert, she sometimes pays homage to a compatriot, as she did during a 2022 performance recorded by the TV channel Arte, saluting the Polish genius of the jazz piano Krzysztof Komeda with a three-movement work.

Subsequently, it was hardly surprising that commissions to write music for film and theatre started pouring in. She was also invited to appear on television – similarly to her role model Komeda, the composer of music for several of Roman Polanski’s

films until his untimely death. Rani’s 2021 album Music for Film and Theatre spotlights this vein of her output, while Venice – Infinitely Avantgarde (2022) and On Giacometti (2023) contain the music for complete films. The latter, released this spring, is the soundtrack of a documentary about the Swiss family of artists, but stands as an original record in its own right.

By the time she takes the stage at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall on 17 October, her third solo album, Ghosts, featuring a stellar line-up of guests (Patrick Watson, Ólafur Arnalds, and Duncan Bellamy of the Portico Quartet), will already be in stores. This album is partly a return to songs with vocals and partly collaborative, but what is certain is that it is a record of electronic art pop with instrumentation more lush than ever before. Ghosts is the voice of an artist who never stops evolving, and who, as the title of the compilation suggests, moves like a ghost between musical worlds, in her capacities as composer, singer and producer. Alongside minimalist piano, other keyboard instruments and synthesizers dominate the sound, while the vocals are more pronounced and expansive than before.

Rani’s lyrics were inspired in part by her twomonth retreat when working on the Giacometti film score in a small studio in the Swiss mountains. “Where I stayed was once an old sanatorium in an area which used to be very popular, but now there are huge abandoned hotels where the locals say ghosts live,” she recalls. “Once you’re deep into nature or some abandoned place, your imagination starts working on a different level.” What interested her while writing the music for this new album, says the composer, was “the edge of life and death, and what actually happens in between.”

Hania Rani can be relied upon to bring a musical world to her Budapest concert that radiates with inner peace, where boundaries are crossed with ease. Expect some ghosts, too.

Endre Dömötör

17. 10. 2023, 8pm Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall

HANIA RANI

HALF A CENTURY IN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

A 50-year anniversary is an important milestone. It is a time for dreams woven over decades to be fulfilled, when ambitious plans and the search for new challenges are things of the past. No one is eager to leave the safe bounds of tradition. The Kronos Quartet, however, has always trodden a different path. Violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Paul Wiancko remain committed to the mission and credo of the San Francisco-based group founded in 1973, placing paramount importance on the joy of discovery and the constant reimagining of the possibilities of the string quartet.

At the beginning of their careers, when the possibilities of the string quartet as a genre were still limited by longstanding Western European traditions, their ambitions seemed audacious. Since then, the Kronos Quartet has become one of the most celebrated and influential ensembles of our time, having played thousands of concerts worldwide over the past fifty years, releasing over seventy albums embracing an exceptionally rich repertoire, and collaborating with some of the world’s most prominent composers, including Terry Riley, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Every year, the quartet goes on tour for several months, playing at the world’s most prestigious concert halls, clubs and festivals, among them Carnegie Hall, BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn, New York’s BAM Next Wave Festival, Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, London’s Barbican, the Philharmonie de Paris, Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, the Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt (Kismarton), the Shanghai Concert Hall, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and the Sydney Opera House.

Kronos Quartet

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Photo: Lenny Gonzalez

The Kronos Quartet’s rich and varied activity also extends to film. A Thousand Thoughts, a documentary with live music by Kronos and narration by Sam Green, with archival footage and interviews, celebrates the quartet’s extraordinary career. Written and directed by Green and Joe Bini, the film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The quartet also appears and plays in the documentary Zappa (2020) and performs the score of Users (2021). Its music can be heard in two Academy Award-nominated documentaries: Dirty Wars (2013), in which it plays the music of David Harrington, and How to Survive a Plague (2012). In addition, the quartet recorded the complete scores for The Green Fog (2017), The Fountain (2006) and Requiem for a Dream (2000), and also performed the music Philip Glass wrote for the restored 1999 version of Bela Lugosi’s 1931 classic Dracula

This is by no means where the extent of the quartet’s activities ends. Through the non-profit Kronos Performing Arts Association, it has commissioned over a thousand original compositions and arrangements for string quartet. It has received over 40 prestigious professional honours, including three Grammy Awards, as well as the Polar Music Prize, Avery Fisher Prize and Edison Klassiek Œuvreprijs. The group has fundamentally changed the traditional view of quartet playing, transforming the genre into a living artistic expression that addresses the people of today and their problems.

The featured guest artist for the evening is also representative of this holistic way of thinking. Kronos will be joined by the acclaimed Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat, performing her own songs based on classical Persian poetry by Rumi and Hafiz. Since 1995, the Tehranborn artist has performed at countless concerts and festivals around the world. Traditional Iranian music lies at the heart of her unique yet broad repertoire. The collaboration between Vahdat and the Kronos Quartet goes back to 2019, when their studio album, Placeless, co-released by Kirkelig Kulturverksted and Valley Entertainment, featured the artist and her singing sister Marjan. In addition to the classical Persian poems mentioned above, the fourteen songs on the album include settings of works by contemporary Iranian poets

19. 10. 2023, 8pm

KRONOS QUARTET: FIVE DECADES FEAT. MAHSA VAHDAT

The members of the quartet: David Harrington, John Sherba – violin, Hank Dutt – viola, Paul Wiancko – cello

Forough Farrokhzad, Mohammad Ibrahim Jafari and Mahsa’s husband, Atabak Elyasi. These deeply emotional works were arranged for string quartet by Sahba Aminikia, Aftab Darvishi, Jacob Garchik and Atabak Elyasi. Shortly after its release, the album topped the World Music Charts Europe and the Transglobal World Music Chart, and the title track was included in the list of NPR Music’s “20 Best New Songs We Heard In March” in 2019. The key to the success of the record, according to a review in RootsWorld magazine, was that “any heart in its path is sure to lose grip on its defences.”

This characterization is equally true of Mahsa Vahdat’s career to date. In her work, creative freedom is closely intertwined with the desire to uphold humanitarian principles. She uses the emotive power of her voice to bring attention to suffering and injustice in the world, while conveying a message of hope and positive change. The concert on 19 October is expected to be no exception, with songs of passion, love and sorrow on the programme: as the San Francisco Chronicle’s reviewer put it, “Vahdat’s vocal colouration, at once lush and piercing, and her sinuous turns of melodic phrase made for a riveting showcase.”

Marietta B. Kaskötő

Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall

The group has fundamentally changed the traditional view of quartet playing…

13. 10. 2023, 7.30pm

House of Music Hungary – Concert Hall

LIGETI PIANO MARATHON

ROAMING IN LIGETI’S INFINITE COSMOS

“Fortunately, György Ligeti’s piano études are terribly difficult. So those who start learning them can spend hundreds or thousands of hours on them before there is reasonable hope of a result. But these hours can then end up being some of the best hours of one’s life, like time spent with Mozart, Chopin and the others.” Thus began a short piece written 20 years ago by pianist Gábor Csalog, paying tribute to the then 80-year-old composer. It’s hard to imagine a more devoted and attention-grabbing prelude to Liszt Fest’s Ligeti Piano Marathon at the House of Music Hungary. In an ideal scenario – such as this – nothing is unplayable for anyone who chooses to perform Ligeti’s études. But for this occasion, Csalog will be joined by two younger colleagues to take on the task. One is László Borbély, a fluent performer of the music of Bach, Liszt, Ligeti and Messiaen, among others, who swept one critic off their feet with “the mere way he produces sounds, the intoxicating clarity and power of his touch.” The other is János Palojtay, whose interpretations combine analytical thinking with instinct, described by his former teacher, Dénes Várjon, as one of the most exciting personalities of his generation.

The programme comprises the cream of the composer’s output for piano, providing a taste of both the beginning and the end of an influential, grandiose œuvre – a wonderful summary of the vibrant Ligeti cosmos, even without its middle period. This is possible because this seemingly endless musical universe absorbed several careers’ worth of influences, from classical to folk music, literature to various mechanical structures, scientific theories and fractal geometry to picture puzzles –a list of inspirations one could continue at length. Instead, let us return to Csalog’s poetic reflections: “If you wish to feel the multifarious weaves and reliefs of the material, to feel its density and consistency, if you wish to be dazzled by the many dimensions of movement, flight, space and time, listen to Ligeti. You will be let into the secrets of the universe.”

BECKETT, ENDGAME

A CLOSER LOOK AT KURTÁG

Sometimes he creates worlds with just a few notes, while at other times he surprises the listener with vast symphonic tableaux – though even the latter can usually be traced back to a single musical idea or motif. Fragments, found objects, homages: the music of the 97-year-old György Kurtág can hardly be summarised in a few words. Kurtág’s rich œuvre culminates in his only opera, Fin de partie, which he nursed for decades until its 2018 premiere at Milan’s La Scala, and which – having been delayed by the pandemic – will at last enjoy its first Hungarian performance. But how can we truly prepare to absorb and understand Beckett’s text and Kurtág’s music? One possible way is to visit this exhibition at Müpa Budapest, where personal photographs, music manuscripts and compelling documents of theatre history bring to life the composer’s career, the figure of his wife Márta, who passed away a few years ago, his relationship to Beckett’s works and the genesis of the opera. The exhibition texts were written by Gergely Fazekas, a music historian who has collaborated closely with Kurtág and has a great knowledge of the composer’s œuvre.

Endre Tóth

Endre Tóth

11–22. 10. 2023 Müpa Budapest – 1st Floor Lobby KURTÁG,

2.

21. 10. 2023, 7.30pm

House of Music Hungary – Concert Hall

GERGELY BOGÁNYI AND THE ANGELICA GIRLS’ CHOIR IN CONCERT

PERFECT MATCHES

What could possibly be performed in the House of Music Hungary, at the Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival, on the eve of Franz Liszt’s birthday on 21 October, if not the music of the composer? As well as the music of Béla Bartók, of course. And just as Liszt and Bartók make a perfect match at this festive concert, the performers – the Angelica Girls’ Choir, led by Zsuzsanna Gráf, and pianist Gergely Bogányi – have long since formed a perfect match of their own, with a professional relationship that goes back more than 20 years. The fruits of their cooperation can be heard on the choir’s 2003 record, In Golden Robe, which includes Village Scenes, Bartók’s masterly interpretation of Slovak folk songs, a piece that could not be left out of the present joint production.

Founded in 1989 at the Városmajor High School and boasting numerous international competition wins and other awards, the choir, which has sung all over the world from the United States to Japan, will also perform a selection of Bartók’s works for single-sex choir, while Bogányi performs a number of solo piano pieces. Alongside Bartók’s choral works, which are frequently heard in concert halls, the programme will also include works by Liszt that are likewise important parts of the choral repertoire but perhaps less known to the general public, including Hymn of the Child on Awakening, which is perhaps more often heard as a solo piano work, and Psalm 137, which evokes the Babylonian captivity.

TOGETHER FOR UNFORGETTABLE MOMENTS!

1. György Ligeti | Photo: Peter Andersen

2. György Kurtág | Photo: János Posztós

3. Gergely Bogányi | Photo: Krisztina Csendes

Endre Tóth

3.

Müpa Budapest’s strategic partner is Mastercard, the supporter of unmatched experiences.

CROSSING INTO ANOTHER UNIVERSE

The upcoming world premiere of three choreographed works set to pieces of contemporary music is the greatest challenge János Feledi has faced over his career. Not only will the three dance pieces be performed for the first time, but all explore stories essential to our very existence.

The choreographed pieces in the production were inspired by three contemporary works: two compositions by György Orbán and Roland Szentpáli’s award-winning entry to Müpa Budapest’s Composition Competition. What links them together?

We discussed the concept with Roland Szentpáli before he submitted his music for ballet, The North Wind and the Sun, to Müpa Budapest’s Composition Competition. Roland approached us with this fable by Aesop. He also showed me some musical motifs, and we worked out the details of the piece together. We searched at length for the most appropriate work to accompany Szentpáli’s, and eventually Müpa and I settled on two choral pieces by György Orbán. As luck would have it, he’s the composer of the season from this autumn, so our production is the first piece in a longer series. The two artists complement each other perfectly: one is a representative of the younger generation, the other a Kossuth Prize laureate with a distinguished career behind him. There will in fact be three premieres.

János Feledi |

Photo: László Szigeti

What is the story that inspired Cosmic Conflict?

It’s based on a Greek myth, the story of the North Wind and the Sun. Every one of these tales contains a lesson. The key message of this one is that force should not always be the means to attain something, because calm composure and discussion can be just as effective. This is an idea that can be applied to our present world as well. Of course, there is nothing new under the sun: only the context changes. And yet I don’t want the production to have an archaic set presenting the world of Greek mythology, but to show the timelessness instead, to create a homogeneous, contemporary medium. One of the pieces by Orbán is a mass, whose inspiration for me is the separation of body and soul, the journey of the soul, while the other features texts by Attila József and Sándor Weöres. These are all abstract stories, which inform every part of the production.

So choreographed moves will be used to tell classic stories? That’s correct, I felt this would be the most appropriate. But this is no traditional storytelling, and I would be wary of a didactic interpretation of the ideas. I want to convey them in a subtle way, by coordinating the visuals and the movements. I think classical teachings are very contemporary. Today's generation, indeed everyone, should go back to their roots a bit, put aside their egos and be more tolerant of each other. Rather than simply walking by each other, we should see and hear each other. We’re experiencing the same things as before, it’s just that the world has changed a little (or not so little). But where will it end – where will we end – if we carry on like this?

When a performance encompasses three works, is it important for these to reflect some kind of unified concept? Absolutely! They have to form an organic whole, which is what gives the performance power and a narrative arc. We set our sights on unified visuals and costumes with Krisztián Minorics and Nikolett Bati, with whom we’ve worked together for so long that we can finish each other’s sentences. There will be a sublime and ethereal quality to the whole show, which is why we’re using the stage technology and lighting of Müpa Budapest, just as the costumes are made of airy, light materials.

The music will invite a lot of attention, especially as Szentpáli’s work will be performed for the very first time. How can you create a balance between music and movement?

It’s always difficult to find the right balance, when the music does not outshine the choreography, and the dance does not upstage the music. I have to create this symbiosis during the rehearsal process. Moreover, it will be a special performance because the Kodály Philharmonic Debrecen will play live, and the a cappella works will be sung by the Kodály Choir. When I was asked how long the performance would be, I could only give an approximate length, as it will probably always be slightly different on each occasion. There’s a magic to live music which lends an extra energy to the performance whenever I use it, something that no recording can replace. The premiere will be a challenge for everyone, I think, and for me as choreographer and director this will perhaps be the biggest production of my career to date.

20. and 22. 10. 2023, 7pm Müpa Budapest – Festival Theatre

FELEDI PROJECT: COSMIC CONFLICT CREATED WORLD MISSA DUODECIMA – PREMIERE

Featuring: Kálmán Dráfi [3] –violin, Gábor Fánczi [3] – double bass, Accord Quartet [3], Kodály Philharmonic Debrecen [1], Kodály Choir Debrecen [2, 3], students of the Hungarian University of Dance [1]

The members of the quartet: Péter Mező, Csongor Veér –violin, Géza Bence Hargitai –viola, Mátyás Ölveti – cello

Conductors: Zoltán KocsisHolper [2, 3], Imre Kollár [1]

Music: Roland Szentpáli [1], György Orbán [2, 3]

Production design, set: Krisztián Minorics

Costumes: Nikolett Bati

Lighting: Miklós Hepkó

Assistants to the choreographer: Tamás Csizmadia [1], Dalma Wéninger [2, 3]

Choreographer, director: János Feledi

I understand the story behind Szentpáli’s work, but how can a mass tell a story?

The separation of body and soul is a story of eternal relevance – take requiems, for example. This can be expressed very beautifully in movements, though you have to make sure the result is neither too dramatic nor too sentimental, but human instead. We’re always afraid to ask the question of what awaits us after life on earth. It’s not easy to lose loved ones or to face a fateful situation. But this is the way of life. Everyone’s imagination forms a different picture of the moment when we leave this earthly existence and enter another world, but I think the most important thing is not to be afraid to step through that door, because every end is the beginning of something new.

Gerda Seres

A SPIRITED ROMA WEDDING FEAST

A show with four iconic artists and groups of Roma dance and music: the staged concert of the Boban Marković Orkestar, Parno Graszt, Mónika Lakatos and the Romafest Gypsy Dance Theatre evokes a spirited Roma wedding feast at Liszt Fest.

The wedding feast is a key event in the Roma community, bringing friends and relatives together for days of merriment. These festivities are marked by a dazzling riot of colours, loud music and, of course, a wealth of sumptuous culinary delights. Even if the latter is not to be expected at this concert, the diversity of Roma folklore will be faithfully represented by four very different regions and moods. Every region has its own Roma wedding customs and music. As the music transports us from the Nyírség region through Transylvania to the Balkans, we’ll get to know the various local Roma wedding dances and tunes along the way.

The traditional Balkan brass band music of Boban Marković can be heard on any festive occasion, as the world-famous trumpeter and his orchestra have shaped their sound and style at exactly these kinds of large family events – births, funerals and weddings. The message Parno Graszt brings from one of the most deprived regions in Hungary is that world stardom does not depend on background. Birth, growing up, elopement and lamenting the passage of time are among the themes of the songs with which Kossuth Prize-winning singer Mónika Lakatos guides us through a multitude of areas inhabited by the Roma,

Boban

Marković Orkestar

from Paszab via Târgu Mureş in Romania to Vladičin Han in Serbia. The Romafest Gypsy Dance Theatre believes that whether Romanian or Hungarian influences prevail in Transylvania, dance conveys the strongest message – and for this reason Gypsy music is considered a medicine.

The Boban Marković Orkestar was founded in 1984 in Vladičin Han, a town in southern Serbia. Born into a family of Roma musicians (his grandfather was considered the best trumpeter in the region, and even played for the king in the 1930s), there was never any question that Boban would follow in the tradition. Starting in his father’s band from the age of ten, playing at weddings and festivals, he later named the group after himself, achieving success first in the Balkan region, then in Europe and worldwide. Winning the prize for best trumpeter at the famous Guča Trumpet Festival five times in a row was an important boost to Boban’s domestic renown, while Emir Kusturica’s film Underground, which features the orchestra’s irresistible music, was key to its international success. Boban has been Serbia’s top trumpeter for almost four decades, and leading British world music magazine Songlines has dubbed him the best on his instrument and in the brass band genre. Perfecting his chops at hundreds of wedding feasts in the Balkans, the trumpeter can be trusted to conjure up an authentic atmosphere: “We grew up in a family where music was a big part of our life, ” he told one interviewer. “We played music when we were happy, when we were sad, when we were celebrating, when we were mourning. Not an hour of a day passed by without music. We speak in the language of music with each other as well. Maybe if everyone could do that, there would not be so much miscommunication between people.”

Formed in 1987 and achieving its domestic breakthrough with debut album Rávágok a zongorára (Hit the Piano) in 2002, Parno Graszt is not only among the most original and popular groups performing traditional Gypsy music in Hungary, but is also one that has remained simple, cheerful and very human. Its first record reached 7th place on the World Music Charts Europe, compiled by radio journalists from 25 countries. Since then, the band has toured the world, thrilling audiences everywhere with its dynamic performances and the kindness of its members. In 2016, Parno Graszt reached the final of the national selection of the Eurovision Song Contest, which (along with joint songs and concerts with Bohemian Betyars) introduced the band to a new generation of music lovers in Hungary. The 2019 album Már nem szédülök (I’m No Longer Dizzy) was once again a major international success, ranking number 3 in the October chart of world music radio stations, journalists and organizers. In a way, almost every concert of Parno Graszt has the atmosphere of a wedding, and the band can be expected to up the ante this evening.

BOBAN MARKOVIĆ ORKESTAR / PARNO GRASZT / ROMAFEST GYPSY DANCE THEATRE FEAT. MÓNIKA LAKATOS

Dramaturgy: István Berecz

In 2020, Mónika Lakatos was the first Roma musician to receive the WOMEX Lifetime Achievement Award, the most prestigious acknowledgement in world music. Long before that, in 1996, she had already achieved an important accolade in Hungary, becoming the first Roma musician to win national talent contest Ki mit tud? In 2004, she and her husband Mihály “Mazsi” Rostás founded Romengo, a band that upholds the musical tradition of the Vlach Roma with songs of their own composition based on authentic roots. She released her first solo record, Romanimo, in 2017, while the 2020 album Hangszín was credited to Mónika Lakatos and the Gypsy Voices. With this formation, she seeks to present and maintain the purest traditions of Vlach Roma culture. Many of her songs are not about unbridled revelry, but are nonetheless sung at wedding feasts. The great turning points of human fate all offer important themes, being parts of the cycle, and thus also of weddings, which celebrate life.

Romafest was founded in Târgu Mureș (Marosvásárhely) in 2001, and has represented Roma culture at numerous international festivals. The current leader and choreographer of the ensemble, Attila Szántó, came into contact with Romafest at the age of fourteen. He then went on to train as a professional choreographer, working for five years with the famous Canadian company Cirque du Soleil, before returning to Romania in 2012. Under his directorship, Romafest organizes various festivals, classes and dance camps, working closely with the Roma community in Romania.

This will undoubtedly be a captivating concert, made all the more special by István Berecz’s dramaturgical concept, which connects many different worlds and offers the audience an impassioned vision of music and dance.

Endre Dömötör

20. 10. 2023, 8pm Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall

OPERA AND SYMPHONY

Begun in 1850 and left unfinished, Franz Liszt’s opera is a little-known part of the composer’s œuvre, which many experts have found far too incomplete and fragmentary to reconstruct. Such opinions notwithstanding, part of it now receives its Hungarian premiere at a captivating production of Liszt Fest.

British musicologist David Trippett, an expert on 19th century music and in particular the work of Wagner and Liszt, decided to create a performable version of the first, completed act of Liszt’s opera Sardanapalo. It took three years to work his way through one layer after another of the 115-page manuscript, revealing an authentic version, which, fully orchestrated, was first performed in Weimar on 14 March 2019. The ample legatos, which preserve the broad melodic arcs of bel canto, call for singers versed in this technique. The female lead at the premiere was thus CanadianLebanese soprano Joyce El-Khoury, a celebrated performer of bel canto roles, and she will sing again here in Budapest, partnered by Spanish tenor Airam Hernández, who has enjoyed international success in the operas of Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi, and Oleksandr Pushniak, a Ukrainian baritone with a rich and powerful voice. The conductor of the production, who also stood on the podium at the Weimar premiere, is another native of Ukraine, Kirill Karabits: a favourite with orchestras in Europe and the United States, he is no stranger to Hungarian audiences either, having conducted the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

Staatskapelle Weimar |

Photo: Felix Broede

Coming to light after 170 years, the composition raises many questions with regard to Liszt and opera – not to mention Liszt and specifically Italian opera, and what is more, Liszt and Italian opera in the immediate vicinity of Wagner. For the most part, Liszt’s symphonic works convey a message: the vast majority fall into the category of programme music, drawing inspiration from some literary piece, work of visual art, mythological story or patriotic theme. However, the 1840s and early 1950s saw the composer take increasing interest in the Italian operatic tradition, and the subjects that intrigued him most were Dante’s Divine Comedy and Goethe’s Faust. “In three years’ time, I will certainly close the lid on my piano and finish my career in Vienna and Pest, where I started. Before that, I want to perform an opera, in Venice of all places,” he wrote. In 1845, he planned to write an opera in Italian based on Byron’s 1821 tragedy, Sardanapalus. The story of the peace-loving Assyrian king, the last of his monarchy who loved revelry and women, became a source of inspiration for Delacroix and Berlioz, and later even Ravel.

Owing to problems with the libretto, Liszt did not start composing until April 1850. In the end, all he completed was the vocal and piano draft that has been found. The libretto has only survived in a sketchbook, written under the vocal parts. Wagner’s voice can be recognized in the introduction, but following the moments that bring to mind Tannhäuser, the listener is reminded of Verdi as the chorus sings out. (Trippett claims that Liszt had the score of Nabucco on his desk while he was composing.) While the orchestration is certainly informed by Berliozian elements, the work as a whole is strongly suggestive of the sound of the composer’s symphonic poems that were then gestating. The novel harmonic vocabulary is entirely Liszt’s own invention. This rare stylistic blend makes for an astonishingly colourful, richly melodic composition that bears the genuine hallmark of Liszt.

The composer eventually abandoned the work, and the manuscript lay dormant for decades. Liszt was plagued by doubts as to his commitment to composing operas. By 1851 he had made up his mind: “I must abide by my resolution never to write opera.” He went on to devote his creative energies to symphonic genres, modelling his heroes in grandiose orchestral works that drew in part on the experiences he gained working on Sardanapalo. He revisited Dante’s Divine Comedy (as well as Faust), which now, instead of potential material for an opera libretto, served as inspiration for the music of a symphony. The composer himself conducted his Dante Symphony at its 1857 premiere in Weimar, where the grand piece failed to win over the audience. However, a year later in Prague, a revised version met with enthusiastic success.

22. 10. 2023, 7pm

Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall

STAATSKAPELLE WEIMAR

Liszt: Dante Symphony

Liszt: Sardanapalo – Hungarian premiere

Sardanapalo, King of Assyria: Airam Hernández

Mirra, an Ionian slave girl: Joyce El-Khoury

Beleso, a priest: Oleksandr Pushniak

Featuring: Staatskapelle

Weimar, Women’s Choir of the Hungarian National Choir

(choirmaster: Csaba Somos)

Conductor: Kirill Karabits

Uncharacteristically, Wagner provided Liszt with friendly, critical assistance during the composition, dissuading him from publishing Paradiso, which originally followed the Inferno and Purgatorio movements and was “enhanced” by a choral finale; Liszt replaced it with a Magnificat for female choir to end the second movement. He wrote two codas for this choral passage, one loud and powerful, and one floating gently and softly. Conductors today tend to opt for the latter, in line with Wagner’s taste. While the reconstructed first act of Sardanapalo will be presented to the Müpa Budapest audience by the conductor and soloists of the 2019 world premiere, the 22 October concert, by including the Dante Symphony, will also shed light on the more than decade-long gestation of Liszt’s approach to the symphonic poem.

Anna Tóth

I must abide by my resolution never to write opera.

LISZT FEST MAGAZINE

Volume 3, October 2023

A free publication of the Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival

Published by Papageno Consulting Ltd. on behalf of Müpa Budapest

Founded by: Müpa Budapest Nonprofit Kft. Csaba Káel, CEO

Publisher:

Managing director of Papageno Consulting Ltd.

Email: szerkesztoseg@papageno.hu

Editor-in-chief: Kristóf Csengery

Publication manager: Bernadett Lukács

With contributions from:

Balázs Bihari, Marietta B. Kaskötő, Endre Dömötör, Ferenc László, Diána Márjánovics, Judit Petrányi, Gerda Seres, Anna Tóth, Endre Tóth, Tamás Várkonyi, Kornél Zipernovszky

English translation: Árpád Mihály

Translation editor: Stephen Paul Anthony

Submissions closed on: 17 August 2023

The organizers reserve the right to make changes.

Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival 11–22 October 2023

lisztfest.hu

Email: info@lisztunnep.hu

Telephone: +36 1 555 3000

BENJAMIN EREDICS musician, composer

GIGI RADICS singer

JÁNOS FELEDI choreographer, dancer

ZSÓFIA SZAMOSI actor

MÓNIKA LAKATOS singer

GYÖRGY KURTÁG composer

Photo: Gábor Valuska