My last concert in Budapest took place during the coronavirus pandemic: I sang a programme of mainly Liszt songs, which the audience was able to watch via a live broadcast. But we as musicians also need to have a real connection with listeners: from my earlier concert, where I performed Bach cantatas, I remember how easily I found the same wavelength as the friendly and curious Hungarian public. I spend most of my time singing operas, and very rarely have the chance to perform at concerts or lied recitals, so getting to know Franz Liszt’s works was a special experience. I’m particularly grateful to the outstanding pianist Helmut Deutsch – who was also my partner at my earlier Budapest concert – for bringing my attention to Liszt’s unique treasury of songs. While the composer makes us aware of that virtuoso piano sound we know so well from his concertos and transcriptions, his songs generate an atmosphere entirely of their own. I’m delighted to be able to take part in the concert to mark the 150th jubilee of the Hungarian Richard Wagner Society whose work I regard as extremely important: while striving to preserve Wagner’s œuvre for posterity, their activity in nurturing the next generation is at least as significant. In supporting young musicians and singers, they not only help those already familiar with Wagner, but also others taking the first steps towards the composer’s magical world. When I sang in Mannheim at the start of my career in 1990, thanks to a scholarship from the local Wagner Society I was able to watch an entire Ring cycle in Bayreuth, the production by Harry Kupfer and
Daniel Barenboim that caused a considerable stir. The performance was a tremendous experience and had a huge influence on the initial stage of my career – and I remain grateful for it to this day. I trust that on the occasion of my appearance in Budapest in October I will have time to get to know the city more thoroughly. My friends and colleagues have all told me what a beautiful place it is! Let’s meet on October 10th at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall – and I hope the concert will be a wonderful experience for all of us!
Michael Volle
Following Bartók’s 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs and adaptations of works by Kodály, Kornél Fekete-Kovács –composer and leader of the Modern Art Orchestra (MAO) – reinterprets what is, in its depth and clarity, one of the most significant works by Franz Liszt. Completed in several transcriptions by Liszt, Via crucis will be performed at the opening concert of the Liszt Fest, where Fekete-Kovács’s 15-member big band will be joined on stage by singers Lilla Horti and Sherry Williams, and organists András Gábor Virágh and Brian Charette.
On mention of Kornél Fekete-Kovács and the Modern Art Orchestra, most of us rightly think of jazz, while the name of Liszt is associated in our minds with virtuosity. The opening concert of this festival, however, will be a total refutation of these preconceptions, as FeketeKovács – dispensing with the sound of jazz – focuses his attention on Via crucis, an entirely non-virtuosic Liszt work that tells the story of Jesus’s suffering on the cross. Those familiar with the work of the MAO leader may know that Fekete-Kovács is little motivated by virtuosity. His work follows the development of his personality: as long as he lives, it is never “finished.” “The goal is progress. But this kind of progress can never be achieved,” as he puts it. He has no interest in “fireworks, bells and whistles and lots of notes,” since for him music’s profundity lies in its simplicity, in “a few notes, every one demanding our attention.” In the visual representation of Catholic churches, it is a requirement for the Stations of the Cross to be portrayed simply, and for each station to comprise a prayer or meditation. In the vocal version of Liszt’s composition, the text sung by the choir consists of biblical excerpts and hymns; it is this
simplicity that gives meaning to the contrast between words and music. Creating a balance between the two, or finding a way for each to compliment the other, is an important task for Fekete-Kovács. For him, verbal expression is mainly about “getting something into people’s heads that most often leaves them no space to think.” In contrast, music provides the listener with greater room for manoeuvre, and for FeketeKovács Via crucis is proof of the capacity of verbal and musical expression to act together in unison.
It is often just as hard to speak of suffering, sin and guilt as it is to experience them. Our culture leaves us to fend for ourselves in confronting and processing these things; it even struggles to grasp the very meaning of these concepts. And yet, since the beginnings of humanity, sin and suffering have been linked to the search for meaning in our existence: to life’s journey and to absolution. The journey as a representation of the trials of life, in which suffering and consciousness unfold simultaneously, is an element in so many biblical stories and masterpieces of literature and fine art. This is a shared story of humanity which never loses its relevance to the present. Twenty years ago, a book based on the diary of Liszt’s pupil Lina Schmalhausen was published under the title The Death of Franz Liszt, in which the author describes the composer’s death throes. In light of Via crucis, it is particularly thought-provoking that the sufferings of Liszt’s final days are preserved in a personal diary. Liszt already articulated the idea of dramatising the Stations of the Cross in early 1874: while observing that “a composition of this kind does not suit the public at all,” he nevertheless wrote that: “I pour out my soul at the foot of the cross.” Liszt composed most of Via crucis over two weeks in 1878, completing the work by Ash Wednesday of 1879.
In recent years, many Hungarian artists – among them Fekete-Kovács – have drawn attention to the significance of Liszt’s more solemn works and late compositions, such as the Dante and Faust symphonies or the symphonic poems. Liszt’s later sacred works reflect on his artistic creed as both composer and performer, and it was after a long search among these that Fekete-Kovács’s choice fell upon Via crucis. “The venue of St Stephen’s Basilica also demanded the choice,” he observes. “While the music in itself is sacred, a work may also become so by dint of the motivation associated with its genesis. The latter are those works in which composers profess their faith.”
Liszt himself showed – with his transcriptions of Via crucis for varied instrumentations – that musical material is open to reinterpretation. In his own work, Fekete-Kovács has made use of all of Liszt’s transcriptions, since “the more musical textures we know, the closer we get to the composer’s thinking.” The wind instruments offer flexibility in adaptation and performance, playing an important role in the stylisation of the choir sound by taking the place of singers, Fekete-Kovács stresses.
Conductor: Kornél Fekete-Kovács
The passages between the individual stations, though allowing space for extemporisation, will here not be transitional sections but scored cadenzas – and not improvisations. These cadenzas – the word can mean either musical cadence or improvisation by soloists –almost double the original 40-minute performance time of Liszt’s work, while they also reflect upon it. They do so as compositions in their own right, according to FeketeKovács, who places great importance on the preservation of the original’s formal simplicity, clarity and subtlety. The unusual programme of this opening concert of the Liszt Fest will attempt to cast new light on the “virtuoso” profile of Liszt in popular culture, while also questioning the dogmatic prohibition on altering written classical scores.
Sára WagnerAmerican saxophonist Ravi Coltrane was born the son of two jazz legends, John and Alice Coltrane. On the way to finding his own creative voice in the wake of family tragedy, he was always conscious of the influence his past would exert. This time, we hear him at a significant stage of his career as he presents Cosmic Music, his first show devoted entirely to the music of his parents.
Ravi’s father John Coltrane is regarded as one of the key figures not only in jazz, but in 20th century music in general. As the younger Coltrane perceptively told Billboard of his father’s classic album A Love Supreme: “If we were to put on a Pat Boone record that was recorded the same year, […] to our ear and our sensibilities, our aesthetics and taste, it would sound like it was maybe 100 years old. A Love Supreme, though, still has that same veering and peeking into the future type of sound, which is very uncommon [even today].” Ravi’s mother Alice Coltrane, though less well known, remains a musical giant in her own right. A classically trained pianist, she also played organ and harp. She met John Coltrane in 1963, marrying him two years
later, and going on to replace McCoy Tyner as pianist in her husband’s group. After John’s death in 1967, she began to release her own albums, which divided critics at the time, but which – drawing on sources beyond jazz and inspired by Eastern philosophies – have come to be regarded as pinnacles in spiritual jazz. In the late 1970s, Alice withdrew from music to head the Sai Anantam Ashram in California, recording Sanskrit devotional songs for the members of the congregation. Born in 1965, Ravi Coltrane was named after the sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, and was not yet two years old when his father died of liver cancer. The Coltrane siblings were very close to their mother. “My mom was like our God,” Ravi said in an interview with JazzTimes. “Although she was at her ashram in California and I lived in New York, she was still a major guide for me in the choices that I would make, consciously and subconsciously.” Although surrounded by music from childhood, Ravi was not pressurised to follow this path. A family tragedy in 1982, the death of his 17-year-old brother in a car accident, eventually launched him on an artistic career. For years after he drifted, abandoning his studies and taking on casual jobs. At the same time, the loss reawakened him to “what we’re supposed to be doing while we’re here.” He began to take music more seriously – and with it his father’s legacy – at the comparatively late age of 21, and traded in his clarinet for tenor and soprano saxophones.
Ravi enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts, studying under Charlie Haden. On graduating, he moved to New York, serving his musical apprenticeship in the band of Elvin Jones, and playing with many other notables including Jack DeJohnette, Rashied Ali, Wallace Roney, Joe Lovano and Steve Coleman. To this day he collaborates widely within and outside jazz, including recording with his cousin, electronic music producer Flying Lotus. Early in his career, Ravi struggled with the burden of having such talented parents. As Jones recalled to the website All About Jazz : “He thought people would just cater to him because he was the son of John Coltrane. I had to get him out of that way of thinking. I said, ‘You can’t control what somebody else thinks. You can control what you think. What you do is because you want to do it. And it’s you doing it. Nobody else could play that but you. That mouthpiece is in your mouth, not somebody else’s.”
As the writer of the article in All About Jazz aptly noted, it would be hard to name one saxophonist of the past 30 years who hasn’t been influenced by John Coltrane. Ravi himself had this to say about the comparison he was often forced to confront: “The burden is very exterior. It’s not an internal burden that I struggle with daily, like ‘Oh my god, my father’s John Coltrane so I have to be great.’ I didn’t grow up that way. It wasn’t that this man was in my house and I saw him every day and tried to emulate him.” Ravi speaks often about his influences, and how they find their way into his music. “It’s almost like every note that you play now is informed by something that happened before. And it’s not even a thought process. Every fibre of your being is responding to this traumatic event that happened in the past. Instinctively, intuitively, you’re just doing things differently because of it,” he told Jazz Times. At the same time, as he stressed in an
interview with the Blue Note record label, this does not mean merely imitating, as the true greats “were not trying to emulate anyone else. They were trying to be themselves, and that made their music stronger and more potent.”
Ravi Coltrane released his debut record as a bandleader in 1998, and his most recent (Spirit Fiction) on Blue Note in 2012, which received three Grammy nominations. His music is usually categorised as post-bop, a blend of hard bop with modal, free and avant-garde jazz. His experimental bent is illustrated by several tracks on the Blue Note album, which were completed by dividing his quartet into two separate duos and then combining the recordings in the studio. Besides this, Ravi is active in preserving his parents’ legacy, overseeing reissues, the restoration of the Coltrane Home on Long Island and its conversion into a communal and educational space. Thanks to him, his mother returned to playing for a short time in 2004 with the album Translinear Light, which Ravi produced and played on alongside several jazz legends. A planned follow-up was scuppered by Alice’s death in 2007. Ravi has played his parents’ compositions in concert, and even recorded a few covers; however, Cosmic Music is his first show devoted entirely to their music. Knowing his career, we can be sure it will be no mere summoning of spirits, but a genuine (re)discovery of familiar pieces.
Although their heroic age was the 19th century, we have in fact enthused about the virtuosos who play their instruments with cunning, lightning-quick mastery for centuries. Though musical showmen have also often been regarded as selfindulgent, the writings of Franz Liszt testify that technical mastery once went hand in hand with substance; that any musician who was a master of their instrument had to be a virtuoso. Here we look at how the view of virtuosos has evolved over the last two centuries.
“The excitement he caused was so unusual, the magic that he practised upon the fantasy of his hearers so powerful that they could not satisfy themselves with a natural explanation,” wrote Liszt of his one-time role model and colleague, Niccolò Paganini, whom he heard for the first time in Paris in April 1832. Sadly, the playing of the “Devil’s Violinist” – like that of Liszt – is not preserved on any recording, and we have to rely on contemporary reports. Paganini had to have some secret if he had admirers even in the French capital, which was not short of virtuosos; many of them were pianists, Kalkbrenner, Moscheles, Thalberg and Dreyschock being but a few of the names now lost to memory. “I do not know if there is a place in which there are more fools and virtuosos than” in Paris, a dismayed Chopin wrote, and Heinrich Heine, who always viewed the showmen with suspicion, referred to them as a “flying-trapeze school,” who played rapidly like machines, and perhaps that was all that needed to be said about them.
But what was it in Paganini’s playing that enthralled Liszt? Above all, it was the violinist’s stretching of the limits of the instrument. To Liszt it seemed that he was hearing not one violin but three at once, as the rapid succession of daring leaps, broad glissandos, tremolos and spiccatos, as well as the unusual scordaturas, promised more than mere speed. This was precisely what Liszt would later accomplish on the piano: to make a single instrument sound like many; to have the colourful impression of an entire symphony orchestra. After hearing Paganini, Liszt practised for ten to twelve hours on his instrument: octaves, thirds, sixths, scales and runs. If his enthusiastic notes and his letters are to be believed, this work was by no means monotonous or mechanical: “For a whole fortnight my mind and my fingers have been working like two lost souls. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Byron, Hugo, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me,” he wrote to a Swiss colleague, before making the famous declaration: “Ah! Provided I don’t go mad you will find in me an artist!” One might ask why he needed books of philosophy to play octaves, but in Liszt’s mind – as for the Romantic musician – virtuosity meant more than speed and circus tricks. The expansion of piano technique was akin to the conquest of Parnassus and the transubstantiation of man, while the technical challenges, to him, represented a kind of moral task. (This is clearly reflected in Transcendental Études, whose original title promised pieces of “superior difficulty.”)
In an open letter published in a French magazine some years later, Liszt wrote: “My piano is to me what his vessel is to the sailor, his horse to the Arab, nay even more, till now it has been myself, my speech, my life. It is the repository of all that stirred my nature in the passionate days of my youth. I confided to it all my desires, my dreams, my joys, and my sorrows.” When the pianist – still in his prime as a virtuoso – penned an obituary of Paganini, who had passed away at the age of 57, he was no longer afraid to criticise his former idol for setting “the goal to be achieved” not within himself, but externally. Elsewhere he expressed the goal of virtuosity as something which can “ignite and nourish in human hearts the enthusiasm for beauty, so closely related to goodness.”
The concept of music had radically transformed by the 19th century: while the art of Bach or Haydn was “pure music,” a geometric or psychological construct separate from the world and reflecting only on itself, the Romantic period after Beethoven saw growing appreciation for the characteristics of tone painting. Competent earwitnesses said of Liszt – who was sometimes portrayed in caricatures with a dozen flailing arms – that each of his fingers produced a different colour on the keyboard: as one put it, “he orchestrates with his fingers.” Liszt’s scores reveal that this was indeed his intention: sometimes he specified a horn-like sound from the performer, sometimes the sound of a flute, or the imitation of pizzicato strings. It is typical of Liszt’s receptivity and desire for knowledge that, after Paganini, he was most greatly influenced by Chopin, for whom poetic expression, not technique, was the primary concern. There is no greater praise for Liszt’s refined virtuosity than the esteem and admiration in which he was held by Berlioz, Wagner and Saint-Saëns, who would never have surrendered to the “flying-trapeze school.” Language can easily deceive, but can sometimes also illuminate: the Italian virtú signifies not only virtue but also skill or aptitude. Instrumental mastery dazzled audiences even before the Romantic period: in the Baroque era, colourful and imaginative improvisation was most valued, while it was written of Mozart that he “weaves strings of pearls from a whirlpool of liquid sounds.” Nowadays a conspicuously difficult, sparkling performance is customarily described as virtuosic. And yet it is not speed that makes a virtuoso, but – as the example of Liszt shows – the aptness, range and musicality of their choices, and in ideal cases a “beauty so closely related to goodness.”
The notion of virtuosity sometimes carries negative overtones, with many inclined to distinguish flashy playing from meaningful, profound music-making. In truth there is a degree of wasteful extravagance in any virtuosic art – useless and senseless like precious jewellery; but before we put our faith in asceticism, we should remember that these notions are constantly in flux. Vladimir Horowitz, who was known as the “last Romantic” pianist, once mused: “A dictionary definition of ‘romantic’ usually includes the following: ‘Displaying or expressing love or strong affection; ardent, passionate, fervent.’ I cannot name a single great composer of any period who did not possess these qualities. Isn’t, then, all music romantic?” Following Horowitz’s lead, we might define virtuosic as possessing deep dedication and assured knowledge of one’s profession; isn’t, then, every great musician a virtuoso?
Three concerts in this year’s Liszt Fest evoke the Romantic tradition of virtuosity in different ways. The music of the world-renowned Janoska Ensemble from Bratislava draws on countless sources. Their concert comprises works by composers beginning with the letter B, from Bach to Bernstein, and their adaptations assign equally important roles to improvisation and constructive competition among the group’s members. Cimbalom player Dániel Szabó and his musical partners will give a concert at the Liszt Academy under the title Liszt and Virtuosity. “I might compare the cimbalom to an inside-out piano, and a performance on the instrument is a spectacle in itself. Virtuosity is inseparable from the instrument, since it is an essential element of both folk and Gypsy music,” says Szabó. “In my view, virtuosity isn’t merely an end in itself provided it isn’t exhausted in selfish rivalry. Once it was customary for musicians to come together and show each other what they could do, playing familiar tunes in various keys and variations. Our concert will show many facets of music – from classical to folk music to jazz. We’d like virtuosity to mean not only speed, but also flexible transition between styles.” The concert will feature compositions by Liszt, and the original folk and Gypsy music which inspired them, played by a folk ensemble, with the addition of a saxophone, a clarinet, a tárogató, a piano and a cimbalom.
For pianist Kálmán Oláh, Liszt is someone to be reckoned with: “He sought novelty and adventure not only in music, but also in life; if there was one Romantic who wanted to know the world inside and out, it was Liszt. He had a quenchless thirst for knowledge in matters of learning, religion and art alike.” Oláh will also perform his own paraphrases and reflections on the master’s works at the Liszt Academy, a practice that was not alien to Liszt either, as he had a penchant for reworking compositions by Beethoven, Donizetti and Chopin. He likes to surprise himself with the paraphrases, says Oláh, who sees improvisation and composition as related fields: “Improvisation can be learned alongside composition, and it isn’t possible for a musician to compose music without routinely improvising.” At the piano, however, he is less interested in Liszt as a person, and more in the notes and harmonies: “While I deeply respect those with great technical skill similar to Liszt’s, he too captivates me with those pieces of the œuvre in which I find deeper meaning. It’s no accident that my programme includes excerpts from the Faust Symphony and Consolations.”
Kálmán Oláh / Photo: Béla Szalóky11. 10. 2022, 7.30 pm
Liszt Academy – Grand Hall JANOSKA ENSEMBLE: THE BIG B’S
The members of the ensemble: Ondrej Janoska, Roman Janoska – violin, Julius Darvas – double bass, František Janoska – piano
17. 10. 2022, 7.30 pm
Liszt Academy – Solti Hall
Featuring: Attila Mihó, Ádám Takács, Máté Hegedűs – violin, Endre Papp –viola, violin, András Bognár – double bass, Péter Bede – saxophone, clarinet, tárogató, Balázs Fülei – piano, Dániel Szabó, Miklós Lukács – cimbalom Concept: Dániel Szabó, Mátyás Bolya
19. 10. 2022, 8 pm
Liszt Academy – Solti Hall KÁLMÁN OLÁH’S EVENING WITH LISZT
Featuring: Kálmán Oláh – piano, József Barcza Horváth – double bass, Horizont Quintet
The members of the quintet: Máté Bán –flute, Béla Horváth – oboe, Csaba Klenyán – clarinet, Gábor Bizják – horn, Attila Jankó – bassoon
Plácido Domingo, one of the most renowned opera singers of our time, introduces the Budapest audience to zarzuela, a genre barely or only super ficially known to us until now, but of which he has been the leading populariser worldwide for decades. The concert he will present in Müpa will be a welcome introduction to a genre of musical theatre that flourished in the 19th century as the Iberian relative of opera, operetta and Singspiel, genres long so familiar to us.
It is common knowledge that the Habsburgs loved hunting, and this was mostly also true of the Spanish branch of the dynasty. In any event, this explains why King Philip IV had the Palacio de la Zarzuela built as a hunting lodge near Madrid in the mid-17th century. Just as well-known was the Habsburgs’ fondness for musical theatre, again also on the Spanish side of the dynasty, who sought to bring this form of entertainment to court. There it gained the distinctive moniker of zarzuela, derived from the zarza (meaning bramble) concealed in the name of the palace – or at least so the general belief goes.
In the mid-17th century, no lesser dramatist than Pedro Calderón de la Barca assisted in the birth of the Baroque zarzuela, supplying an ancient mythological theme in poetic prose accompanied by song and dance, in a somewhat similar vein to the English semi-operas by Henry Purcell that may be familiar to us. But then history, as it so often does in other realms, went on to interfere with the evolution of this genre of musical theatre. Among other things, it placed a new dynasty on the Spanish throne in the 18th century in the shape of the Bourbons, who – despite their French origins – tended to favour Italian operas. The zarzuela began to fall out of fashion in its Baroque form, although strong demand persisted for musical pieces with a popular or national character outside the royal court and the walls of palaces.
This eventually led, in the more bourgeois period of the second half of the 19th century, which came to represent the genre’s Golden Age, to the blossoming of a new kind of zarzuela. This period saw the birth in Madrid of the classic masterpieces of zarzuela, comparable to Singspiel, opera and operetta, and even the Hungarian genre of the népszínmű (people’s play), courtesy of composers such as Francisco Asenjo Barbieri and his younger contemporary and pupil, Federico Chueca. These two are honoured as both masters and progenitors of two branches of the zarzuela genre. While Barbieri was a giant of the full-length género grande, which consists of three acts and is substantial in all respects, Chueca became in the 1880s one of the originators of the even more popular género chico, the shorter, breezier subtype of the genre containing more prose parts. Of course, both subgenres continued to insist on an Iberian colouring in the arias, duets, chorus numbers and dance scenes that are interspersed among the scenes of the plot, which is itself furthered in prose – even when the storyline was borrowed from French sources. Likewise, the choice of folkish themes and moods always prevailed in all zarzuelas, whether the story was set in a big city or a village. Alongside the dazzling variety of regions, nationalities, dialects and jargons represented, zarzuelas commonly contained a measure of social or political commentary, and at times genuinely inflammatory material.
For the most part of the 20th century, the devotees of zarzuela continued to expand and enrich the popular genre’s repertoire. Via the efforts of Pablo Sorozábal, Moreno Torroba and others, the genre’s profile remained easily recognisable through every change of era and taste, while it refused to stiffen into a lifeless tradition. Representatives of other regions and musical worlds also gained admittance to the zarzuela stages, as evidenced by a Hungarian example: the great hit of Alma de Dios, a 1907 work by José Serrano, is a canción hungara (Hungarian song), sung by a Hungarian beggar in the play, who reminisces about his beloved homeland far away. Of the above-mentioned composers, the names of Sorozábal or Torroba may well seem familiar to many of us today, and this is thanks first and foremost to Plácido Domingo, who has taken captivating hits from the zarzuela repertoire to all corners of the globe for decades. His bond with the genre is familial in the very strictest sense, since the young Plácido was initiated to thespian craft during tours of the travelling zarzuela company of which his parents were stars and managers. While, in the manner of José Carreras, Teresa Berganza and many other Spanish opera stars, he loves to sing popular zarzuela songs far beyond the boundaries of the Spanishspeaking world, he has other ways as well to do a great service to the genre so dear to his heart. At Operalia, the opera competition he founded in 1993, awards to the best zarzuela singers are also conferred, with Rolando Villazón, Angel Blue and Lisette Oropesa in the ranks of the special prize winners.
At his very first appearance at Müpa in a career of more than six decades, Domingo will take the stage with other “native speakers” of the zarzuela genre, who are also widely sought after in the world of opera. María José Siri’s name had to be etched in our memory in 2016 at the latest, when Riccardo Chailly revived the original version of Madama Butterfly from obscurity at La Scala in Milan, featuring the wonderful Uruguayan soprano in the title role. Despite his youth, Tenerife-born tenor Airam Hernández, likewise has a string of major operatic conquests behind him, from Barcelona to Zürich to the Perm Opera under Teodor Currentzis. His compatriot Jordi Bernàcer, meanwhile, has become a familiar name from Los Angeles to Ljubljana as a conductor not only of zarzuela concerts, but also of complete theatrical performances of this quintessentially Spanish genre – most notably in productions where the lead role has been played by Domingo, the soul and driving force of the genre whose inexhaustible energies remain into his 80s.
Ferenc László
9. 10. 2022, 7.30 pm Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall Featuring: María José Siri –soprano, Airam Hernández – tenor, Hungarian National Philharmonic Conductor: Jordi BernàcerFrom the incomparable silence of the Land of Fire and Ice and the bosom of the Steinway that was his family’s greatest asset, Víkingur Ólafsson has risen to the ranks of the world’s most sought-after pianists. The Daily Telegraph described the 38-yearold Icelander as “the new superstar of classical piano,” while Gramophone hailed him as a “breathtakingly brilliant pianist.” Whether playing Bach or Rameau, he treats every piece as if it had been written today. Exemplifying his countless ties to Hungary, his latest record was inspired by a meeting with György Kurtág.
Ólafsson’s destiny as a pianist was sealed before he was born. His parents were students in Berlin when his grandfather passed away, leaving an inheritance. “My mother is a piano teacher, while my father is an architect and composer. When my grandfather died, my parents invested all their money – even with an extra loan – to buy a Steinway piano, which stood in the middle of our tiny basement flat in Reykjavík. It was very important that my parents decided on the piano and not a bigger home. For me, this instrument was the centre of the world,” the pianist recalls in a touching family anecdote he has shared in numerous interviews.
Though the keyboard towered above his head, Víkingur began playing from the age of 18 months, striking the keys one at a time with a lighter touch than usual for a small child, and watching. This early, deep connection may explain why he has perfect pitch, and also why he associates colours with sounds. Ólafsson was talented and diligent, but did not live the stressful life of a child prodigy. In Iceland there were few courses for pianists, so his was a more relaxed childhood. “I’m lucky I grew up in Iceland and not Moscow, Beijing, New York or London. There was no competition in my life; I just played piano because I loved to play. My career was less stressful and more about joy and the excitement of discovery,” he explained in an interview with Librarius
Hungarian musical influences have been interwoven into Ólafsson’s life since childhood. His mother began his musical education with Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, while one of his first piano teachers studied at Budapest’s Liszt Academy. From an early age he played pieces by Liszt and Bartók, while as a teenager his teacher György Sebők opened up the world of music for him. Another defining experience was his meeting with the pianist György Sándor, a student of Bartók who supported the composer during his final years in New York, and who continued to give concerts into his 90s. “I can’t stop emphasising what a strong affinity I have with Hungarian music,” Ólafsson noted in the Librarius interview. “Maybe it has something to do with the similarity between Icelandic and Hungarian folk music, or how in both languages the emphasis is on the first syllable.”
At 17, Ólafsson made his debut as a soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, an experience more nightmarish than liberating, whereupon he opted to continue elsewhere. Gaining entry to New York’s Juilliard School, he confronted his shortcomings listening to contemporaries who cut their teeth in international competitions. This was an important, somewhat cold awakening for him, as a consequence of which he upped his tempo to become known as the young man who never left the rehearsal room. During his years of study in America, he took part in just one competition – and there, too, played Bartók. After Juilliard, the pianist moved with his wife to a modest apartment in Oxford. “Those three years were a time to find my own voice, and become my own teacher. It was then that I really started to play and think about Bach. Bach became my teacher,” the pianist recalled in an interview in The Guardian Although his musical world is eclectic and broad-reaching, there are two composers to whom Ólafsson always returns: Bach and Mozart. “Those are two constants who I keep always with me. I can’t get enough of their music – and I always find new things.” According to Gramophone, “Like Glenn Gould, Ólafsson possesses that rare gift of illuminating a familiar work in unexpected ways, revealing hidden depths and drawing out its best qualities.”
Ólafsson’s creative, exuberantly free playing has taken him to most of the world’s iconic concert venues, from the Royal Albert Hall to Carnegie Hall. He was soloist at the opening of Reykjavík’s Harpa in 2011, while the same venue hosts Reykjavík Midsummer Music, the chamber music festival he founded
in 2012. Ólafsson’s recordings for Deutsche Grammophon (including works by Philip Glass, Bach, Debussy and Rameau, as well as Mozart and his contemporaries) have been well received by both listeners and critics. In 2019, he won the Gramophone Artist of the Year award and BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Year (for his Bach album), and he is a two-time Opus Klassik award winner. He enjoyed a three-month residency for BBC Radio 4, being an engaging communicator who relishes introducing contemporary Icelandic works, and has collaborated with Glass, John Adams and even Björk.
A meeting in Budapest last year with the composer György Kurtág, whom Ólafsson regards as one of the great musical minds of the century, proved the inspiration for a new record, From Afar, which will be released in October. A few hours with Kurtág made a deep impression. “Talking and playing for him genuinely gave me a different perspective on life and music. After the encounter I wanted to write him a note, but I couldn’t find the right words. Instead a musical map started to form in my head,” he recalls in the preview for the album. Besides Kurtág’s miniatures, the album embraces archaic melodies from Hungary and Iceland, favourites from Ólafsson’s childhood, and reflections on the silence of his native land. Ólafsson begins the 2022/23 concert season at the Royal Festival Hall in London and at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and will go on to make his debuts with both the Berlin and New York philharmonics. At Liszt Fest, he performs Ravel’s spirited, scintillatingly fresh piano concerto.
Adél Tossenberger Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 Featuring: Víkingur Ólafsson –piano, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Conductor: Rafael Payare7–9. 10. 2022, 11 am Bálna Budapest
International contemporary art fair
Art Market Budapest, the leading international contemporary art fair in Central and Eastern Europe, this year focuses on the cultural values of Serbia. Under the aegis of the Most.Serbia festival that forms a part of the fair, Serbia’s most exciting contemporary artists will be introduced at 11 stands – with the joy of discovery thus guaranteed! Some 120 exhibitors will travel from almost 30 countries to the event that attracts tens of thousands of visitors annually, who will have the chance to view or buy from among thousands of works by more than 500 artists in the exhibition space of Bálna Budapest. There will be a strong emphasis on innovative works that draw on art from the Eastern Bloc, the progressive West or scenes in other continents less well known in Hungary. The side events of Art Market Budapest include East and Central Europe’s sole inter national photography fair, Art Photo Budapest, as well as Inside Art, an interna tional art conference.
While the title of the event borrows the word “marathon” from the world of sport, it is at once also a relay, since no less than seven organists will perform on the grandiose instrument of the Sacred Heart Jesuit Church in Budapest’s Józsefváros over the course of the day. Ágoston Gedai, Zoltán Herczeg, Tamás Kubík, Csaba Tasi, János Túri-Nagy, Alan Zsilka and – providing accompaniment to a mass that begins at 6 pm – Brúnó Kaposi will each take their turn at the manuals, stops and pedals. Representatives of a new generation of Hungarian organists will play works by Liszt which enriched the church music of the com poser’s own time, as well as his transcriptions and extensions for organ of works by other composers of the 19th century and earlier periods alike. While hearing the performanc es of the young organists, the audience may also recognise the continuance of another historical tradition, as the organ of the church in Mária utca, having undergone restoration in recent years, has reassumed – through the careful reconstruction work of expert crafts men – at least the external resemblance of its original form after the many alterations it has gone through over time. Based on the one-time masterpiece of the Wegenstein factory in Timișoara (Temesvár), the expanded three-manual instrument now stands at the disposal of the church and organists, a fine exemplar of the meeting between modern technology and fidelity to style.
Margó Prize-winning Rita Halász’s debut novel Mély levegő (Deep Breath) dissects the crisis in the relationship of a couple in their 30s, its scalpel sparing neither its protagonists nor the reader. Following their story, we too feel that demon settling on our chest, a tightness in our stomach and a paralysing tension. Vera is suffocating in her marriage, and after a violent quarrel escapes her husband with her two children. “Who have I been living with? Who am I to have lived with him for so long?” – she asks herself. It isn’t good to be Vera, and it isn’t good to be Péter. While we constantly desire relief, release and a breath of fresh air, the way out can be just as full of destruction, dependency, unpleasantness and injuries. But at least it is there. As a review in Revizor put it: “Her release is more like struggling to her feet, but Vera finally leaves behind her crippling superegos and gets up off the floor with her own strength.” The novel is evoked here on stage by Junior Prima Prize-winning actress Hanna Pálos and Zoltán Beck, front man of rock band 30Y and an assistant university professor.
10. 2022, 6 pm
Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art SMALLER WORLDS
Diorama in contemporary art
“This year in Paris, Mssrs. Bouton and Daguerre, under the title Diorama, displayed two transparent panels before the public which provoked much amazement by fully imitating nature, so ingeniously altering the light that the perspective entirely tricked the eye of the viewer into believing the thing was being seen in its natural reality.” So reported Hasznos Mulatságok (Useful Amusements), a pioneering organ in Hungarian press history, when describing the birth of this novel means of expression and artificial spectacle in 1823. The periodical’s report was timely indeed, since Daguerre and Bouton’s invention had first astounded the public in the French capital barely two months earlier with views of Canterbury Cathedral and a valley in the Swiss Alps. “The pictures are painted on vertically suspend ed canvases, and the viewers are all but carried away before the tableau, which alters to every change and newly presented perspective” – continued the insight ful review. Nevertheless, the spectacle thus described only corresponds to one kind of diorama today. Over the past two centuries, the diorama has evolved into a rich and varied visual genre, with a meaningful role in arts and entertainment, museum education and frivo lous leisure time alike. Whether in the focus of fashion or the periphery of artistic interest, it has never lost its usefulness or fascination as a clever tool for creating the illusion of reality. Bearing testament to this, the ex hibition Smaller Worlds at the Ludwig Museum attempts to present the diverse artistic, psychological and philo sophical aspects of this visual genre and interpret them in the context of contemporary art. Through the work of artists from the US, Netherlands, UK, Germany, Trinidad, Poland and Hungary, among others, this unusual exhibition offers a glimpse into the narrow, yet so expansive universe of these delimited boxed spaces.
Year
2020, mixed media
la Città, Verona
Some old, dear friends come to the Liszt Fest in the shape of the Berlin-based Familie Flöz, whose masked figures once more get mixed up in absurd adventures. This will be the company’s fourth visit to Budapest since 2016. Infinita mused on the beginning and the end of life, while Hotel Paradiso whisked us to a nightmare hotel in the Alps. Dr Nest introduced us to a surgery where we wondered who was the doctor and who was the patient. The audience of the new production, Hokuspokus, will finally also get to know who is hiding behind the masks.
It is perhaps not the themes that leave the strongest impression on fans of Familie Flöz, but the genuinely unique method and aesthetics with which the company, balancing on the tightrope between theatre and circus, has practically redefined masked performance, a genre known since antiquity. The performers’ physiognomy is concealed in their shows by masks of flexible material that are larger than normal head size but perfectly fit their faces. And yet from the auditorium these do not really appear to be “masks” but real faces, which genuinely seem to wrinkle their foreheads in worry, knit their brows, or draw their wider-than-normal mouths into hesitant smiles.
Familie Flöz enjoys playing with distortions in scale: the hesitating, grotesque figures might not seem very smart, appearing to have unwittingly lost their purpose amid the stylised stage sets. Their faces display a gentle melancholy and constant surprise, and yet we somehow still consider them intelligent, thoughtful creatures. We are compelled to trust our first impressions – if only because the characters do not speak: the company’s productions, which succeed in both creating powerful atmospheres and telling stories, rely on the aforementioned facial expressions and gestures, movements borrowed from physical theatre and even the evergreen punchlines of slapstick comedy. Besides the above, the secret to their success is to be sought in the perfect timing of the stage action with the accompanying music, and the use of expressive and striking body language.
Familie Flöz – whose name means “seam,” a layer of valuable raw material under the ground – has embraced the method of collective creation for almost three decades. Its fulllength shows are difficult to squeeze into any generic pigeonhole, but are not hampered by any language barriers. Recruited from several generations and ten nations, the members of the “family” include actors, musicians and dancers, as well as set designers, dramatic advisors and – as they themselves put it – “other good souls.”
We said the characters do not speak – but that is in fact no longer the case. Hokuspokus, the latest Flöz production that premièred in June 2022 and visits Müpa at Liszt Fest in October, holds many surprises even for those who count themselves familiar with the group’s theatrical language and working methods. Hajo Schüler, founder and co-artistic director of Familie Flöz, and director of the new production, says of the concept: “This time we wanted to somewhat broaden our perspective: in Hokuspokus it is not only the familiar masked figures that appear on stage, but the actors themselves, who until now had usually remained hidden behind their masks.” During rehearsals, the usual moment came for the actors to retreat behind their masks and give up the language they had been using until then; on this occasion, however, things took a different turn. In Hokuspokus the only stage set is a cubeshaped element that keeps transforming, and which is home to the masked figures – representing scenes from the biblical Paradise to a home today. The story of those living here is told by their own creators through pantomime, music, spoken word, song and sounds, live video and animation. It is theatre within theatre and about theatre, with lots of projection, visual trickery, and a broad range of associations enriching the visual experience: an unalloyed theatrical Wunderkammer of the kind only Familie Flöz can construct today.
Reviews after the first performances in Berlin celebrated the new production. According to Nachtkritik ’s enthusiastic critic, “Hokuspokus is charming, quietly wise and infused with that kind of wit that only a few can do,” while Berliner Morgenpost observed that the company describes life “enigmatically and with a lot of wit in what is probably their most emotional production to date.” Another critic, after a guest performance at Lisbon’s prestigious Almada Festival, likewise did not skimp on the positive adjectives: “Familie Flöz gives life to a metatheatrical delusion that is poetic and innovative, atavistic and experiential, physical and magical at the same time. A hymn to transformism, a fair of music, colours and costumes, a show that deserves the standing ovation.”
Concerning the plot of Hokuspokus, Hajo Schüler said: “The story begins with the creation of the world: the unmasked actors, who are like creators, set the masked figures in motion, or rather, they help them to come into being. In this way, the audience can see with their own eyes how the masked creatures are born, how they find their own way, and then lose sight of it in the world; how they shape their lives, and even at one point perhaps
Performed by: Fabian Baumgarten, Anna Kistel, Sarai O’Gara, Benjamin Reber, Mats Süthoff, Michael Vogel
Written by: Fabian Baumgarten, Anna Kistel, Sarai O’Gara, Benjamin Reber, Hajo Schüler, Mats Süthoff, Michael Vogel
Music: Vasko Damjanov, Sarai O’Gara, Benjamin Reber
Masks: Hajo Schüler
Set: Felix Nolze (rotes pferd)
Costumes: Mascha Schubert
Illustration: Cosimo Miorelli
Sound: Vasko Damjanov
Lighting, animation: Reinhard Hubert
Assistant to the director: Katrin Kats Director: Hajo Schüler
come face to face with their own creators…”
The story will be familiar to all of us: it follows the path of two people, from falling in love and starting a family all the way to the last, difficult moments of farewell. The origin of the word hocus-pocus also comes into play, possibly derived from the phrase in the Catholic liturgy, albeit perhaps once misheard – or even parodied – by the faithful: “Hoc est enim corpus meum” (“This is my body”). In this context, an endlessly human medley of happy and sad moments typical only of us flashes before our eyes, only to fade into nothingness. The protagonists love, quarrel, fall out, grow up, reproduce, grow old, grieve – all in a series of short, sharp and dense episodes, much as in our own lives.
Tcha Limberger and Lajos Sárközi Jr have a great deal more in common beyond their extensive knowledge of the urban Gypsy music tradition and the mastery of jazz. Both are keepers of a disappearing musical culture, carrying the music of generations in their blood, and have made use of their visceral talent with a tenacity that has elevated them among the world’s best. It’s therefore no exaggeration to say that the first meeting on stage of these two charismatic violinists – presented as part of Liszt Fest – is a match made in heaven.
Hailing from Brugge in Belgium, the Flemish-Sinti
Tcha Limberger was still a child when he lost his sight, but this did not prevent him from continuing in his family tradition. His family of itinerant musicians boasts some famous musical ancestors: both his grandfather and his brother were violinists, and his father and uncles are also musicians. “Somehow it never even occurred to me that I’d be anything but a musician. The only question that arose was: what kind of music should I play?” – Limberger recalled in an interview with Hungary’s Recorder magazine. His exceptional talent became apparent at an early age: while still a child he was captivated by flamenco, and began performing at the age of nine.
After a while Limberger swapped his guitar for a violin – which happened to have belonged to his grandfather –and because Hungarian music had always been highly
respected in Manouche Gypsy circles, decided at the age of 25 to visit Hungary to learn Hungarian Gypsy café music in an authentic setting and from the best-known musicians in the genre. “Among Manouche Gypsies, the Hungarian nóta [folksy melody] represents the highest imaginable level of musicianship,” Limberger told Recorder. “So once I’d been learning the violin for two years, I went to Budapest, where I saw Lajos Boross, Sándor Járóka, Sándor Buffó Rigó, the big names of the era, and that was it for me: so this is what I need, this is what I want to learn.” However, Limberger also realised quickly that he wouldn’t be able to perform the Hungarian melodies authentically and with full empathetic feeling without knowing the words, and so he learned Hungarian through Braille. “I sometimes say jokingly about myself that I’m an ersatz Hungarian, though honorary sounds nicer. I’ve spent a lot of time in Hungary and Transylvania, and I’ve learned the language pretty well too. For many years I was only occupied with Hungarian folk music,” Limberger recalled in an earlier interview with Fidelio magazine. In addition to his proficiency in folk and Gypsy music traditions, Limberger remains a first-class exponent of the Manouche style of jazz, made famous by Django Reinhardt.
Lajos Sárközi Jr also has music in his blood, no great wonder for the scion of a seven-generation dynasty of musicians. “No man in the family would ever have a civilian occupation. Everyone was either a violinist or played the viola, double bass or cimbalom. It was obvious I’d be a musician too,” he recalled in an interview. That his true instrument would be the violin was proven immediately after his birth. According to Roma musical tradition, when a newborn enters the world, either the father or grandfather – though generally the latter – takes him a bow in the hospital, and if the baby grabs it, then it is all but certain that he will grow up to be the lead violinist of a Gypsy band ( prímás) or play some other stringed instrument. And that was exactly how Lali – as most call him – got his first bow. By the age of one or two he was already learning violin, initially from his father, before being enrolled at the Józsefváros Music School at the age of five. Aged 12 he entered the Liszt Academy’s School for Exceptional Young Talents, from where there was no stopping him. From the age of 15, competition wins followed one after another in jazz and classical music alike, both idioms in which he has played from a very early age with the same élan and talent as he does Gypsy music.
The Junior Prima Prize-winning musician was 17 when he started performing with his own band in the venerable Kulacs Restaurant. This was a big deal because playing music in restaurants and cafés is no easy task, and mastering it is usually a long process. An apprentice will usually enter into service when still a child alongside
Featuring: Lajos Sárközi Jr –violin, guitar, Benjamin Clement –guitar, Lajos Sárközi and his band, Kalotaszeg Trio
The members of the band: Lajos Sárközi – violin, guitar, Gyula Bóni – viola, Sándor Csík – double bass, Gyula Csík – cimbalom
The members of the trio: Tcha Limberger – violin, guitar, Rudolf Toni – viola, Rudolf Toni Jr – double bass
a famous prímás, attending the restaurant where they play and watching them, violin in hand. For Sárközi, it was self-evident that he would learn alongside his father, and thanks to this experience he came to be travelling the country alone at a very young age – while all the time continuing with his studies in classical music and jazz. After a time, it became a kind of cultural mission for Sárközi to regain respect for Gypsy music and to acquaint as many people as possible with this extraordinarily rich musical tradition. “The way I see it is that what we play is Hungarian music, only it has always been played by Gypsies” he explained to one interviewer. “The reason the term Gypsy café music exists is that it was mostly cafés and restaurants that provided the location for performing it, but the music remained Hungarian music regardless.” As Sárközi has pointed out, there are few musical traditions as rich as urban Gypsy music. It is also true that there are few performers of his level of sophistication who would also excel in another highly challenging genre such as jazz. Tcha Limberger and Lajos Sárközi Jr are without doubt such performers: musicians to the core who will evoke the atmosphere of the taverns of Gyula Krúdy’s time with their urban Gypsy melodies, while also conjuring the memory of concerts of the Reinhardt dynasty and Stéphane Grappelli; all this with the undisguised intention of continuing to safeguard these exceptional musical traditions in the manner they deserve.
R. B. F.
Founded in Pest in 1872, the Hungarian Richard Wagner Society – one of several such organisations formed in European capitals – took an active part in creating Bayreuth’s shrine to Wagner four years later. The Hungarian soloist at a concert to mark the 150th anniversary of the society’s foundation will be the outstanding Bayreuth-trained mezzo-soprano Atala Schöck, known for her memorable performances in the roles of Fricka and Brangäne. She will be joined on stage by world-renowned German baritone Michael Volle. But how is it possible to perform excerpts from Wagner operas? And how does it feel to quarrel with the ruler of the gods?
Besides talking about her roles, we also asked Schöck whether “Wagner voices” still exist today.
Atala Schöck
I majored in history and German at university, and I was always interested in the Migration Period, and within it the Germanic tribes and the world of legends. When I had the chance to travel for a summer university course, I chose one with the Nibelungenlied as its theme, while I wrote my thesis on the literary background to The Ring of the Nibelung. I’m not a scholarly type, but I’m proud to have read the original mediaeval texts. During my years at the Liszt Academy, I went to Bayreuth on a scholarship from the Hungarian Wagner Society, where I heard Siegfried Jerusalem and Waltraud Meier in Tristan and Isolde
The performance had a huge impact on me, but at the time it hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d sing Wagner one day. After graduating I took part in various singing competitions, and this is how I was heard in Toulouse by an artistic consultant to the Bayreuth Festival, who invited me to audition for the role of a flower maiden in Parsifal. So between 2004 and 2007, I was singing in Bayreuth at what was practically the start of my career. I have wonderful memories of this time, as an entire colony of Hungarians worked there: my singing teacher Judit Németh was a performer, Ádám Fischer conducted for two years, and we sang with Anna Korondi too. To this day there are still many Hungarians in the choir and orchestra, and the members of the Hungarian Wagner Society were there every year, celebrating us.
What was the impact of your initial experiences in Bayreuth on your relationship with Wagner?
I immediately formed a more personal relationship with his music. I was there at a really beautiful time, when Wolfgang Wagner [the one-time Bayreuth Festival director, grandson of Richard Wagner and great-grandson of Franz Liszt] was still alive, as was his wife. When I arrived, there was a mill wheel-sized bouquet awaiting me in the dressing room, with a card signed by all the members of the family. They instantly took me in. It was a special feeling to experience this as a novice at the age of only 30. They really love Hungarians in Bayreuth, doubtless because of our great ancestors. They were supportive of young artists, and through patrons I received several concert invitations to France. It would be so good to return to Bayreuth!
Despite this dynamic start, for a long time you weren’t really considered a Wagner singer. Does such a category even still exist today?
Not really. It’s partly necessity that leads singers to sing everything these days. For years we’ve been saying there are no truly great Wagner voices any more. The voice mainly depends on physical build, the length and thickness of the vocal cords, but a lot can be added to this with the right singing technique. What’s really needed is for singers to be given progressively difficult Wagner roles step by step, not all at once at the start of their careers. Now they’re talking about Lise Davidsen as “the new Birgit Nilsson” – and from time to time a new reserve of Wagner singers arrives from the Scandinavian countries. They have the necessary physical attributes and height. It’s the Viking background, of course… (laughs) I must confess I don’t see myself as a singer of Wagner in particular. It’s true that right now Wagner’s my great love, but I sing all kinds of other things, such as the French repertoire or oratorios. Michael Volle – who will partner me at the concert in October – still proudly talks about singing Bach or songs, and I’m the same. Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to hearing him!
How can the opera music of Wagner be sung in a concert setting?
It was difficult to choose the excerpts we’ll sing: sopranos always have a few hits to choose from (like the aria Dich, teure Halle), but mezzos have nothing like it. If we pick out a scene, it often ends awkwardly, as if it’s been cut short. My options as a performer differ from an opera performance: I can only make minimal gestures and facial expressions, but there is a beauty to having to paint each character to the listeners with my voice. With Wagner there’s a unity between text and music as with no one else; for this reason, knowledge of German is useful as I can really get under a character’s skin. Just consider how Wotan isn’t a very sympathetic figure, and yet all the Valkyries are crazy
about him! And Waltraute harbours no sibling jealousy: as she embraces her father, he thinks of Brünnhilde and smiles for the last time, while she sets off to her sister without a moment’s thought. These beautiful details only emerge if you’re able to completely immerse yourself in the background of the characters. Erda is often portrayed as old and ugly, covered with veils, and yet she tells off Wotan, the king of the gods, which piques his interest, and he searches her out again… and Erda bears him a child, Brünnhilde. She has an extraordinary femininity, her voice exuding both wisdom and sensuality. It seems Wagner knew women extremely well. Allegedly there was a room in the Wahnfried villa where he kept women’s clothes to try on from time to time. I don’t know if it gave him pleasure, or if that was how he collected his thoughts and feelings for characters.
It’s unusual to associate such a transformation with our image of Wagner! When I’m rehearsing at home, I often put on my evening dress, put my hair up and try to imagine I’m on stage. This is important: I have weekly singing lessons, twice a week with a piano accompanist too, but you also need to engage with roles on the days in between. Often I only have time to read the text, which is also extremely useful because it puts the emphasis on something other than singing.
The Hungarian audience has heard you most often in the role of Fricka at the Budapest Wagner Days. Many singers emphasise the character’s earthbound nature, but this wasn’t true of your most recent portrayal. Several people have told me that I played the role completely differently this year than in 2019 [the Budapest Wagner Days took place in 2022 for the first time since before the pandemic]: then I portrayed Fricka as a goddess, but this time it was as a flesh-andblood character. Of course it also depends on what kind of Wotan is with me. Again it’s worth examining the
“I can confidently say that the Wagner traditions in Hungary are far stronger than anywhere in Europe outside Germany. This is primarily thanks to Franz Liszt and the composer and music educator Ödön Mihalovich, who presided over the foundation of our society in 1872,” says the architect Gábor Zoboki, designer of Müpa Budapest, who has held the position of president of the Hungarian Richard Wagner Society since April 2021. “The cult of Wagner already existed in Hungary before the composer gave a joint concert with Franz Liszt at the Vigadó in Pest in 1875,” he says. “The BudapestBayreuth relationship was extraordinarily strong from the beginning. To give you just one example, at the opening of the Hungarian Royal Opera House on 27 September 1884, the first act of Lohengrin was heard after extracts from Ferenc Erkel’s Bánk bán and Hunyadi László.” In Zoboki’s view, the Bayreuth style of opera performance has undergone a complete paradigm shift in recent times. “They don’t send Brünnhilde in on horseback anymore,”
he observes, referring to the growing openness of directors towards philosophical interpretations of Wagner’s operas. Besides cultivating the Wagner tradition, the society naturally fulfils other tasks. Each year it awards scholarships to two talented singers to take part in rehearsals and performances at the Bayreuth Festival; recently this privilege was granted to Gabriella Fodor, Orsolya Sáfár and Szilvia Vörös. Mostly Wagner – this is the motto Zoboki envisages for the future of the society. They will continue to have events that focus on famous Hungarian Wagner singers – having most recently featured István Berczelly and Katalin Kasza, with the 80-year-old Éva Marton to follow next year – while shining the light during concert visits on other composers who came into contact with the Wagner universe. Chief among these are Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss, the composer who, as Zoboki puts it, “pops up sooner or later in the lives of many great Wagner singers.”
10. 10. 2022, 7.30 pm
Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall
Works by Liszt and Wagner
Featuring: Atala Schöck –mezzo-soprano, Michael Volle – baritone, Hungarian State Opera Orchestra
Conductor: Pinchas Steinberg
character’s background: what have these two people been through? Here there’s a typical male-female conflict: Fricka is full of bitterness and anger; she’s been through a lot and has endured many humiliations.
Isn’t Fricka motivated to crush her husband under her feet?
Yes, and what a great feeling it is! (laughs) I always imagine her at the end, flicking her cigarette butt and stomping it out theatrically. Now – for the first time – she’s finally on top. There’s a lot of tension between them, and the woman eventually gets to have her say. At the same time, the conflict between Fricka and Wotan is about more than trampling on each other, since all along each trusts the other will come to their senses sooner or later.
At the October concert you’ll get more closely acquainted with the figures of Waltraute and Erda. What other Wagner roles would you love to sing?
My big dream is Kundry from Parsifal. Actually it’s no longer just a wish: I’m studying the role now, as I’ve been invited abroad and I wouldn’t like to be unprepared at the likely audition. I’ve looked at two passages more thoroughly, the first being when Kundry tells Parsifal what happened to his mother. It’s wonderful, like a lullaby! For me it’s more comfortable to sing because it’s written in a lower register. Later the part becomes more difficult and higher, when Kundry relates how she laughed at Christ. I think this is one of the most cathartic parts – and that’s the other one I try to tackle. It completely captivated me; the music is beautiful, and now it’s my next big challenge. These are not easy times we live in, so it’s an especially good feeling to have a vision for the future, a goal to move towards.
Isolation Budapest is attempting on the three stages of the Akvárium Klub something largely unprecedented in the Hungarian capital, though many long-established events the world over have set a similar example (such as London Calling in Amsterdam, to mention just one). At this one-day festival at a single venue, the audience will get the chance to hear a host of up-and-coming performers with great promise. Some of the talents appearing are still at the threshold of fame (Ben Narcis, Charlotte Cornfield, Sister Ray, Jimi Somewhere, THE GOA EXPRESS), while the arrival of others is preceded by popular acclaim among trend-setting fandom (Willie J Healey, Westerman, Michelle Gurevich). Just as at other mini-festivals of its kind, we can also catch one or two well-established performers: besides Danish art rockers Efterklang, who already have a hugely successful concert in Budapest behind them, a band with real star power appears in the shape of Black Country, New Road – dubbed by some the “new Radiohead” for the 2020s.
Isolation Budapest, a one-day mini-festival debuting in a single location during Liszt Fest, offers a cross-section of the latest sounds in popular music. The line-up is extensive and varied, spanning singer-songwriters, folk, art pop, garage punk and post-rock, and made even more impressive by the presence of Black Country, New Road, the most acclaimed English guitar band of the past two years.
The above set of adjectives was the slogan of Nation Records, a label grouping British Asian dance music acts in the 1990s, but it also perfectly suits the headline performer at Isolation, English band Black Country, New Road. When a group widely regarded as among the best on the scene today takes the stage in Budapest at its peak, it marks a rare occasion not to be missed. Black Country, New Road is emerging as one of the top bands of the new decade, ever since it released its two debut singles in 2019. With a fresh and unusual sound, Athens, France and Sunglasses created huge waves in contemporary rock. The sixpiece Cambridge band soon swelled to seven, creating a stir with its inclusion of violin and saxophone alongside traditional rock instruments. Their long, elaborate songs precisely captured the Zeitgeist, generating a hype similar to that of predecessors
and prototypes (such as Mogwai, The Coral, WU LYF, and Fat White Family) which likewise emerged – seemingly from nowhere – with a powerful, fully-formed and unique sound. One key to the band’s success is that its music, rooted in postrock, sufficiently differs from the sound of both role models (Slint) and contemporary colleagues (Black Midi), effectively blending diverse, seemingly incompatible elements (jazz, klezmer, contemporary minimalism). At the same time, its lyrics – delivered in the Sprechgesang recitative style – have hit their target with audiences, dealing directly and honestly with the problems of modern life. Naturally the band also needed a superb debut album, duly delivered with 2021’s For the First Time. Its sequel, the more “chamber pop”-oriented Ants from Up There released at the start of this year, took it up another notch, being comfortably the year’s most highly rated album on Rate Your Music, the leading online community site for music fans, while also garnering critical acclaim. Just to put a spanner in the works, however, front man Isaac Wood announced his departure at the time of the second album’s release, citing mental exhaustion. So what does a band at its creative peak do at such times? While making it clear that the door remains open for the singer and guitarist to return in the future, the remaining members started work on new music, with a view to road-testing it live. Like the first album, this year’s LP – which peaked at third place on the UK album charts –was released on the Ninja Tune label, primarily a dance music specialist. This in itself is indicative of a unique group which defies all musical conventions, and which simply needs to be heard live.
While the presence of Black Country, New Road is worth the price of admission alone, it’s not the only good reason to go to Isolation. The festival is all about getting to know more than a dozen other great artists first hand. Denmark’s Efterklang are likely the most popular, especially in Budapest, where they previously gave a memorable concert, and local fans now have another chance to catch their brand of chamber and dream pop. Born in Toronto to RussianJewish immigrants, Michelle Gurevich – who formerly recorded as Chinawoman – is a singersongwriter whose dark but intimate ballads enjoy great popularity, while London-based Westerman’s sophisticated art pop has enchanted no less a listener than Elton John. The festival also embraces garage punk (Night Beats), British indie rock (Glastonbury alumni The GOA EXPRESS), electronic dance (Superflake), Norwegian R’n’B-tinged art pop (Jimi Somewhere), and several outstanding singer-songwriters (the Beck-like Ben Narcis, Canadian alt-country artist Charlotte Cornfield, her more folk-oriented compatriot Sister Ray, and Hungary’s own Judit Bárány, known as the singer of Human Ramen). More than a dozen acts that are not a dime a dozen, in a single evening, live? It’s a great occasion for us to feel part of the international pop music mainstream and to discover pio neering new favourites, and of course to be part of what promises to be an unforgettable evening and one of the year’s best concerts.
Featuring: Black Country, New Road, Willie J Healey, Ben Narcis, Charlotte Cornfield, Efterklang, Jimi Somewhere, Michelle Gurevich, Night Beats, Sister Ray, THE GOA EXPRESS, Westerman, Superflake, Lituma, Judit BárányEfterklang / Photo: Dennis Morton Charlotte Cornfield
Jörg Widmann’s opera Das Gesicht im Spiegel (The Face in the Mirror) is the sixth production to come to Müpa courtesy of Neue Oper Wien. Prior to October’s Hungarian premiere of the work, which is based on the conflict arising from an unusual love triangle, we look back at the modern opera premieres of recent years in which the conductor Walter Kobéra – musical director of the Austrian company – has played an invaluable part.
“The disappearance of song from contemporary opera is one of the great unsolved crimes of our time. It is well known that the victim was alive and frequenting opera houses all over the world just before World War I,” wrote a critic in The New York Times in 1981. Comic and nostalgic in equal measure, there is some truth to this assertion. Opera as a genre has undergone a radical transformation in the past 100 years. It is no longer merely the realm of Caruso and Pavarotti: gone are the potent (or sensationseeking) duets which even adversaries sing together in perfect harmony, as in the works of Donizetti or Verdi, and neither do composers have to insert ballet music as Wagner did for Tannhäuser when he wanted to conquer Paris with his music. Modern works offer different pleasures, and different dramatic effects and thrills. Vienna’s Neue Oper was established in 1990 at the instigation of the French-born director Olivier Tambosi, with the goal of staging works that did not fit into the seasons of traditional opera houses. Conductor Walter Kobéra was also there at its birth, having got to know Tambosi in the 1980s when they worked together on Mozart’s Idomeneo. Some years later in the new theatre, they collaborated on Cherubini’s Médée, and then caused a minor scandal with a production of Verdi’s Macbeth, which they set in the Yugoslav Wars. Kobéra has been artistic director of the institution since 1993, overseeing some 100 productions. These include works that have enriched the repertoire, such as Paradise Reloaded (Lilith) by Péter Eötvös, which was written and dedicated to Neue Oper Wien.
Neue Oper Wien and Müpa Budapest began their cooperation in 2013, with the aim of presenting Vienna premieres to the Hungarian public. The first year saw the staging of György Ligeti’s famous “antianti-opera” Le Grand Macabre, an absurd, grotesque and satirical play on both musical styles and human civilisation’s obsession with the end of the world. In early 2014, Eötvös’s Paradise Reloaded focused on Lilith,
the first wife of Adam, the figure of an independent, demonic woman that remains taboo to this day. The following year, the Budapest audience had the chance to see Shostakovich’s comic nightmare The Nose A memorable feature of the production by Matthias Oldag was the wall of the stage set on which the audience could read about the Ukrainian-Russian conflict then raging on a somewhat smaller scale than now – as well as about the responsibility of the aggressor and of Europe. In 2018, it was the turn of Leonard Bernstein’s disquieting chamber opera A Quiet Place. The subject matter is indeed serious as it concerns a much-traumatised family’s gathering following the mother’s death, when hitherto repressed emotions and identities are revealed – as is a gun that contradicts Chekhov’s principle. Similarly unsettling questions were raised by the 2019 Hungarian premiere of Angels in America, Eötvös’s opera based on the Tony Kushner play telling the story of a gay man dealing with AIDS: such as, what is it like to be excluded and sentenced to death in the civilised world?
Jörg Widmann’s first work for the stage, the opera Das Gesicht im Spiegel, premiered in Munich in 2003 and has been staged in many other theatres since. A student of Hans Werner Henze and Wolfgang Rihm, the composer preserved something of the tonal roots of Western music, and in this work creates some astonishing sounds, including scoring for a women’s choir singing in “white voice” without vibrato. With librettist Roland Schimmelpfennig, he chose the unusual theme of how man becomes dehumanised in an age when the value of things is determined by the stock market. One element of the story not alien to the genre is the love triangle – albeit here between a man, a woman and a clone of the woman. Husband and wife Bruno and Patrizia are managers of a biotechnology company. One of their scientists, Milton – naturally named after the author of Paradise Lost – successfully produces a clone of Patrizia,
15. 10. 2022, 7 pm
Performance by Neue Oper Wien
Performed by: Roxane Choux, Ana Catarina Caseiro, Wolfgang Resch, Georg Klimbacher, Eszter Petrány
Featuring: UMZE Ensemble, Women’s Choir of Wiener
Kammerchor (choirmaster: Bernhard Jaretz)
Conductor: Walter Kobéra
Music: Jörg Widmann
Libretto: Roland Schimmelpfennig
Set, costumes: Christof Cremer
Sound: Christina Bauer
Lighting: Norbert Chmel
Director: Carlos Wagner
who is named Justine. The clone awakens feelings of love in Bruno, but he falls victim to an untimely accident. The two women – original and clone – are confronted both by each other and by many questions: principally, whether it is possible to remain individual in a mass age. “We had in mind an operatic dystopia in which the dystopia itself is not entirely the opposite of a utopia; indeed, the two are very close,” the composer revealed in an interview in Müpa Magazin The composer’s one-time teacher Hans Werner Henze wrote in 1958: “A step into unknown territory does not always have to be based on technology, nor does it necessarily have to be ‘forward’ (who can say where ‘forward’ lies?). It is enough to take it towards what in the fog, in unforeseeable time, still appears unused.” Modern opera, having thrived for a century but whose raison d'être is called into question at every turn, evolves exactly in this way: it is always seeking unexplored territory. That this always connects to the past and to thousands of years of tradition in the dramatic genre can be no accident. Perhaps a smart observation by Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust is apt here: “In the end, we’re dependent on the creatures we’ve created.”
14. 10. 2022, 8 pm Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall
Award-winner of Müpa’s 2020 Composition Competition
The smell of books, ideas running wild behind the pages, sparkling conversations, music tailored to the written word: this is the Margó Literary Festival and Book Fair, which on this occasion takes place over four days at a new location in the National Dance Theatre. While reading and writing are solitary activi ties, Margó is a communal experience where readers, writers and books come together. New this autumn: Márton Gerlóczy contin ues his merciless dissection of family in the second part of his identity thriller, János Háy illuminates literary humour in his latest work, László Darvasi contributes some masterful new short stories, Krisztián Peer passes on his “acerbic, thoughtful and wise buffoonery” in a new volume of verse, and Kriszta Bódis writes in a new novel of the unclassifiable fe male icon Klára Tüdős. In addition, the festival will award the Margó Prize to the best first volume of prose fiction, while marking both the centenary of the birth of psychologist and writer Alaine Polcz and the tenth anniversary of the publication of Krisztián Nyáry’s history of Hungarian literary figures’ love lives. Lovers of Scandinavian fiction will also not be disappointed as the festival welcomes Norwegian novelist and screenwriter Maja Lunde, her compatriot Cecilie Enger, Sweden’s Stefan Ahnhem, and Denmark’s Sissel-Jo Gazan. The festival days will be rounded off with the concerts of Platon Karataev, Magashegyi Underground and Henri Gonzo és a Papírsárkányok, while the standup comedy of Gergely Litkai adds some spice.
There can be no doubt that, as before, we can expect Kornél Fekete-Kovács and his col leagues to deliver progressive, contemporary music. Among the objectives of Müpa’s Composition Competition, launched two years ago to huge professional interest, was that the best pieces should be heard by audiences live. Presenting one of the winning works in the large jazz ensem ble category, this evening is a tribute to Fekete-Kovács in more ways than one: not only is he the composer of Senza Nome – Music for Jazz Quintet and Orchestra, but he will also serve as conductor for this performance of the work. The Italian title of the composition means simply “nameless” – but this certainly does not mean we cannot guess at the nature and quality of the production that lies in store. Pianist Róbert Szakcsi Lakatos, the brilliant American tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza, and Russian trumpeter and flugelhorn play er Alex Sipiagin will be playing leading parts in the company of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
17. 10. 2022, 8 pm
Music Center
Hall
The soprano Erika Miklósa –who has travelled the world in the role of the Queen of the Night from Mozart’s The Magic Flute – has never confined her musical interests to the genre of opera. She has performed duets with Hungarian popular singers Jimmy Zámbó, Attila Dolhai and Attila Kökény, sung musicals and folk songs, appeared in an operetta by Emmerich Kálmán, and both recorded and toured with the Modern Art Orchestra. The singer will perform on this occasion with the Jazzical Trio, comprising Norbert Káel, Péter Oláh and András “Pecek” Lakatos. In the spirit of the concert’s title, the programme – with arrangements by Káel –truly promises a journey where musical dimensions meet in fertile interaction. Beginning with a song by Franz Liszt, the programme filters settings of Hungarian folk songs by Kodály and Bartók through the medium and musical space of jazz, and there will be two compositions by André Previn, the pianist, conductor and composer who passed away in 2019.
Once again this year, courtesy of the Budapest Showcase Hub (BUSH), we get to hear the aston ishing variety of answers to the question posed in the title: everything in music from bedroom pop to underground hip hop to indie rock – artists from 12 countries in an eclectic and caressing ecstasy of music in five emblematic venues in Budapest. The post-Soviet pop scene would be unthinkable without the boundary-pushing Ukrainian Ivan Dorn, whose music is a potent blend of house, disco, pop, free jazz, funk, soul and hip hop. The Stand Up for Ukraine tour in which he takes part has raised funds for his homeland from Vilnius to Miami. Estonian favourite Daniel Levi and his band evoke the musical world of Bruno Mars, blending soul, funk, R’n’B and rock. Indie rockers Zimbru, founded by four friends in Romania, sing of “lost pets, queer love and nature.” The delicate, intimate songs of Amelie Siba of Czechia provide a therapeutic listening experi ence, while Slovakian duo Lash & Grey promise emo tional music and sensitive lyrics in ample helpings. Charismatic Pole Jann is celebrated for his refined pop songs, while Alejas from Lithuania brings lyrical elec tronic music to the party. Slovakia’s 52 Hertz Whale takes us on a post-punk journey, while we dive into the world of bedroom pop with Romanian artist Sofia Zadar. Hungary is also represented by OIEE (Bence Kocsis) with some funk-fusion electronica, while Co Lee (Kolos Halász) gives us a taste of his underground hip hop. The style of VENI (Veronika Szász) is an idiosyncratic miscellany ranging from church music to pop, while Boróka Andl-Beck (daughter of Zoltán Beck, front man of 30Y) makes her entrance in the indie pop genre. Finally, this year also includes a professional confer ence with music industry speed dates, interviews and panel discussions from the pandemic and beyond.
To recharge their creative batteries, bands often step back for a lengthy rest, – and initially know little about its outcome. Australia’s Hiatus Kaiyote, a band impossible to pigeonhole musically, were forced to step back for a while, but recently made a successful return from their own hiatus and will play a gig at the Liszt Fest in Budapest in October. But to get to know them better, we need to go back a couple of decades…
Naomi Saalfield was born in Melbourne in 1989. She and her five siblings were raised by their single mother; at home they listened exclusively to black soul performers such as Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder. Naomi was just 11 years old when her mother died of breast cancer, and two years later her long-estranged father also passed away. For a while she lived with her aunt, before being fostered by a family in the country who ran an animal sanctuary. She didn’t stay there long either, and in her teenage years – if her biography is to be believed – worked for a short time as a fire juggler, ended up homeless and began performing as a street musician, writing her own songs and adopting the stage name Nai Palm. In 2010 she was approached at a solo gig by bass guitarist Paul Bender, with whom she initially performed as a duo, subsequently expanding to the four-piece Hiatus Kaiyote with the addition of keyboardist Simon Mavin and drummer Perrin Moss.
At first the band performed along Australia’s East Coast, while putting together their debut album comparatively quickly, releasing it in 2012 under the title Tawk Tomahawk Attracting a growing amount of attention, they were recommended by Bobby McFerrin’s son to electronic music guru Gilles Peterson, and their talent was also recognised by producer Salaam Remi, a name previously associated with hugely successful albums such as Fugees’ The Score and Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. It came as no surprise when Remi’s newly launched label Flying Buddha, an imprint of Sony, picked up Hiatus Kaiyote as its first signing, re-releasing Tawk Tomahawk with a new version of the hit Nakamarra as a bonus track, featuring a guest rap from Q-Tip, formerly of A Tribe Called Quest. By now the band was being praised on social media by the likes of Erykah Badu and Questlove; however, Nai Palm and the band were most taken by an approving tweet from none other than Prince.
It’s worth pausing a moment to consider Hiatus Kaiyote’s style and the musical influences they have absorbed. By their own account, they purposely seek to frustrate critics’ attempts to pigeonhole the group. Irrespective of the band’s intentions, of course, critics will be critics: some describe their style as neo soul, others go for future soul, and jazz funk is also often mentioned. For this writer, Hiatus Kaiyote play a complex brand of R&B that’s difficult to dance to, with a great deal of variations in tempo, while betraying the influences of jazz, soul, progressive rock, African funk, samba and other Latin styles.
The aforementioned version of Nakamarra with Q-Tip received a Grammy nomination in 2013 – making Hiatus Kaiyote the first Australian band to be listed among the nominees in an R&B category. Two years later came the release of their second album, Choose Your Weapon, which they made with Salaam Remi, on this occasion laying down tracks in studios both in Australia and in the US. In tribute to their love of mix tapes, they included short interludes between the songs, and this contributes to the impression of a true concept album. The songs betray turn-of-the-millennium neo soul influences, and like its predecessor the album received rave reviews and another Grammy nomination for the single taken from it. Cuts from the album were subsequently sampled by major stars such as Anderson .Paak, Kendrick Lamar and Drake, as well as husbandand-wife duo Jay-Z and Beyoncé on their joint album.
The members of the band: Nai Palm – voice, guitar, Paul Bender – bass guitar, Simon Mavin – keyboards, Perrin Moss – drums
Palm released a solo album in 2017 entitled Needle Paw, a minimalist recording featuring both her own songs and covers, with only her guitar for instrumental accompaniment. Known for her extravagant makeup, face tattoos and clothes, the singer-songwriter recast songs by David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and Radiohead in her own image. The following year saw a dream come true when she appeared on Drake’s album Scorpion. Not long after, however, she was diagnosed with breast cancer (the same disease that claimed her mother two decades earlier), but following treatment has luckily since declared herself symptom-free. During the enforced hiatus, the other members launched side projects: Moss recorded a solo album under the name Clever Austin, while Mavin formed a new band (The Putbacks). Bender began his own project (The Sweet Enoughs) and acted as producer for several little-known Australian acts. Without doubt the trio also enjoy performing together, as evidenced by the instrumental album they recorded and released under the name Swooping.
In 2020, Hiatus Kaiyote signed a publishing contract with Warner and released their third album, Mood Valiant. By Palm’s own admission, she drew inspiration for the lyrics from her illness, the loss of a pet and the isolation caused by the pandemic. The band picked up where they had left off: critics swooned again at their music – reserving special praise for Get Sun, the song recorded with veteran Brazilian composer Arthur Verocai – and the Grammy committee once more deemed them worthy of an award nomination. Hiatus Kaiyote are back as a captivating, exciting band, and local music fans now get the chance to hear their colourful and complex songs live at the Akvárium Klub.
István Nagy
Is Gypsy music Gypsy folk music? Franz Liszt answered this question in the unequivocal affirmative in his book The Gipsy in Music, published in Paris in French in 1859. Today we know the answer is more complex. Where does Gypsy music originate, and how has it evolved over the past couple of centuries? What methods are used to prepare talented Roma children for a musical career? We look at the unique methods of the Rajkó Orchestra on the 70th anniversary of its foundation.
The names of Panna Czinka and János Bihari are familiar to many. Both were key figures in a period that saw the reputation of Gypsy ensembles enhanced as they evolved into institutions – the former in the mid-18th century, the latter at the beginning of the 19th. The beginnings of Gypsy music as we know it today can be traced to the time of the First Viennese School – its influence discernible in certain works by Joseph Haydn – and evolved in parallel with Romanticism. One reason for its popularity was that musicians included well-known melodies in their repertoires: the rebellious verbunkos and its later “tamer” forms, the csárdás and palotás, followed towards the end of the 19th century by the Hungarian nóta (popular song). Unbridled, virtuosic Gypsy music became a vehicle of Hungarian national sentiment in stark rejection of the Habsburgs, and so it is no wonder that the great Romantics of the age – Ferenc Erkel, Franz Liszt and the globe-trotting violin virtuoso and composer Eduard Reményi – were inspired by the distinctive performance style of Gypsy musicians, as was Claude Debussy in a more distant location and time.
Liszt, whose Hungarian Rhapsodies carry the unmistakable influence of Gypsy music, believed – true to the spirit of the times – that he was hearing genuine Gypsy folk music. Today we know that Gypsy music evolved in quite the opposite direction. Sources testify that the Romungro people (Hungarian Gypsies) arrived here in the 14–15th centuries, where they settled mainly in the Mátra foothills and Upper Tisza region and absorbed Hungarian influences over the centuries, from the language to melodies. This led to the creation of a unique musical world that belonged to neither authentic Gypsy nor authentic Hungarian folk tradition. We may regard it instead as an idiosyncratic cultural treasure, in which melodies and styles of various origins are layered upon one another, and which at once fulfilled an important social function. One of the most important ensembles to rescue the cultural legacy of Gypsy music for the 21st century is the Rajkó Orchestra, which marks its 70th anniversary this year. Founded by the prímás (lead violinist) and music teacher Gyula Farkas, the ensemble’s goal from the outset was to mould talented Roma children (rajkó means child in Romani) into professional musicians. Already in the 1950s, the Rajkó Orchestra worked together with a folk dance group, which grew by 1973 into the orchestra’s sister company, the Rajkó Folk Ensemble. Since the change of political system in 1989, the teaching of music and dance takes place in a foundation-maintained school.
The first in Hungary to write a comprehensive analysis of the Rajkó Method was András Suki, a pianist and teacher at the Liszt Academy, who himself is a practitioner of the method. Perhaps the best-known element of the method is “teaching from the hand,” which – contrary to traditional music teaching based on reading sheet music – builds on listening and visual memory skills. Students develop far more quickly and successfully in the initial years using this method. (Naturally Rajkó pupils later also learn to read sheet music, along with the other fundamentals for a career as a musician: music theory, music history, and knowledge of Gypsy and Hungarian culture.) The second pillar is early childhood music education, which has a long tradition in musical Gypsy families. Infants are usually introduced to melodies and instruments by their fathers, and on reaching school age, these children already possess the preliminary grounding to help them hold their own among their peers. Of course this is not the only programme in Hungary in which Roma children can take part in special musical training; however, the Rajkó Method was devised specifically for pupils from families that intend them to pursue a professional musical career. Helping them in this regard is the third pillar of the method: the opportunities the Rajkó Orchestra provides to perform at home and abroad, together with regular appearances on radio and television. Under socialism, the Rajkó Orchestra was part of the Central Artists’ Ensemble of the Young Communist League, and students were employed by the one-time Hotel
21. 10. 2022, 7.30 pm
Pesti Vigadó – Ceremonial Hall
Featuring: József Lendvay – violin, János Balázs – piano, Jenő Lisztes – cimbalom, Rajkó Orchestra (general director: István Gerendási), Budafok Dohnanyi Orchestra, Budapest
Academic Choral Society (choirmaster: Ildikó Balassa), Rajkó Folk Ensemble, Sziráky Tímea Dance Company
Conductor: Gábor Werner
Ifjúság: in this way, they not only developed a stage routine, but respect and payment for their work. In addition, the ensembles had their own resort where, besides relaxation, summers were spent in preparation for performances.
There was a time when the rajkó pupils would spend almost all their time together: studying, living and travelling together to perform. Another element of the method that provided the framework for this was the boarding school, the vibe of which Suki likens to the magical world of Harry Potter books. For families in the countryside, it was comforting to know that their children, though far from home, were still in a safe environment; however, the school has since closed due to the deteriorating condition of the building, and its fate remains unresolved. In Suki’s view, the absence of the boarding school, combined with the altered rhythm of life of musical families adjusting to new music consumption habits, raises challenges for practitioners of the Rajkó Method. In Hungary, the Rajkó-Talentum School of Dance and Music and the Rajkó Orchestra itself fulfil the task of promoting the historical and cultural heritage of Gypsy music; at this 70th anniversary concert, educators committed to the Rajkó Method and their talented students will proudly display the fruits of their work.
works of predecessors such as Bach and Beethoven with the greatest respect, even humility, his own music would serve as a guiding light for both contemporaries and later generations. In a similar way, the Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival, boldly flying the flags of both tradition and innovation, assigns a prominent place to a compellingly themed concert by Studio 5.
artists coming together to jointly safeguard their interests, pooling their strengths in order to represent their own styles, intellectual approach and message. On the 20th-century Hungarian music scene, the 1970s proved fertile ground for both the New Music Studio and Group 180. Although our composers did not fall silent from the 1990s, we had to wait until 2016 for another such association to emerge, as five young composers joined forces to set up a new creative group.
The members of Studio 5 claim to be free of stylistic preconceptions, gladly utilising and integrating various musical influences. Studio 5 is not given to extreme experimentation: the group aims to reach its audience through works that may be influenced as much by today’s pop music as by Bach and Liszt. Part of their credo is to maintain a healthy balance between tradition and innovation, and to remain on the boundary between the two camps: while they don’t wish to join the ranks of the conservatives, nor do they align themselves with the avant-garde’s rejection of anything of value that is old. Although the group has seen a number of membership changes over the years, all five current artists – Máté Bella, Balázs Kecskés D., Bence Kutrik, Roland Szentpáli and András Gábor Virágh – graduated from the Liszt Academy in Budapest. The most important forums for Studio 5’s activity are its composers’ evenings, where the members breathe new life into the concert format. Studio 5 has given concerts where
dance or other visual elements play a significant role, or where the key role is played by a group of instruments or even a critic reviewing new works. As they say, it takes an open mind above all, rather than any formal training, to appreciate their music.
Máté Bella is equally at home in the worlds of contem porary music, pop and musical theatre. He has been commissioned to write works by leading ensembles such as the Ensemble Intercontemporain, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern and Budapest Festival Orchestra. His popular music can be heard on the radio, while his operas and musicals are performed in leading Hungarian theatres. Winner of the Junior Prima Award, Erkel Prize and Bartók-Pásztory Prize, Bella is currently a lecturer at the Liszt Academy, with a mission to integrate Generations Y and Z into the classical music scene. The youngest member of Studio 5 is Balázs Kecskés D., who besides the Liszt Academy, attended university in Florence. By his own admission, his music draws on the widest variety of sources: “I am inspired by Saint Augustine and Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Schubert and Katy Perry, J. S. Bach and Meredith Monk.” His works have been performed by noted European and American ensembles, and most recently his oratorio Komm and orchestral piece Blue were enthusiastically received by both critics and audiences. Similarly to Bella, he was mentored courtesy of the Péter Eötvös Foundation, and has won several domestic prizes (the Benedek Istvánffy Prize, Junior Prima Award and Junior Artisjus Award). Also active in teaching at the Liszt Academy, he is currently occupied with the roles of electronics, pop music and AI in classical music. Prior to the Liszt Academy, Bence Kutrik studied composition in San Francisco and Toronto. Besides works for the concert hall, he has also composed award-winning film music. While classical European traditions represent an important foundation for him as a creative artist, the focus of his musical thinking is on experimentation. His current research focuses on “the algorithmization of musical progressions by means of information technology and AI.”
Roland Szentpáli first conquered the world as a tuba player, winning several international competitions as a virtuoso on his instrument, receiving invitations to renowned festivals, and teaching master classes at home and abroad. As an orchestral musician he is a member of the Hungarian National Philharmonic, while the music press has written much about his instrumental innovation the Twoba, which enables tuba players to finally perform standing up. His chamber music, concertos and works in other genres admit the influences of folk music and jazz, though he easily integrates many other styles into his compositions.
Like Szentpáli, András Gábor Virágh is an instrumental performer, titular organist at St Stephen’s Basilica and winner of awards at international competitions as both
Liszt: Poetic and Religious Harmonies – No. 6, The Awaking Child’s Hymn
Máté Bella: Judas – world premiere
Liszt: Two Legends – No. 2, Legend in E major (St. Francis of Paola Walking on the Waves)
Balázs Kecskés D.: Postludes
– world premiere
Liszt: Years of Pilgrimage III – No. 4, Fountains of Villa d’Este Roland Szentpáli: Water – world premiere
Liszt: Grey Clouds
Bence Kutrik: Prelude – world premiere
Liszt: Grandes études de Paganini – No. 6, Étude in A minor (Theme and Variations)
András Gábor Virágh: Spectre – world premiere
Featuring: Fülöp Ránki [1, 2], Domonkos Csabay [3, 4], Balázs Fülei [5, 6], Zsolt Ádám Szokolay [7, 8], Mónika Ruth Vida [9, 10] – piano
organist and composer. As a composer he assigns an important role to his own instrument, but also writes in other genres and forms, having composed solo pieces, chamber music, vocal works, orchestral compositions and an opera. Following the Junior Prima Award, Benedek Istvánffy Prize, a Kodály Zoltán Creative Scholarship in Music, the Erkel Prize and Classical Composition of the Year award, his work was most recently recognised with the Bartók-Pásztory Prize. The infusion of new blood into contemporary music is thus assured. The concept for Studio 5’s production at the Liszt Academy indicates that time-honoured tradi tion can fit side by side with the progressive approach essential for the members of the group. This concert serves as an example, its world premieres offering the composers’ fascinating reflections on Liszt’s piano works.
Dancer and choreographer Dóra Barta, winner of several presti gious awards and an Artist of Merit, founded the Badora Dance Com pany in 2008. On this occasion, as part of the Liszt Fest, the dance company presents the premiere of Falling Out of Time, a monumental and unsettling production that also raises a number of philosophical questions. In this world, loss is the cause of not only a sense of want, but a source of vitality as well. We spoke with the choreographer about the genesis of the production.
Dóra Barta made her debut as a child actress in 1987, on the stage of Erkel Theatre, and the decades that followed saw her dance in one work after another by great artists and renowned choreographers. She made her first choreography in 2000, and since then, dozens of her works have been performed by her own company, as well as by the National Dance Theatre, the Szeged Contemporary Dance Company, the Gárdonyi Géza Theatre in Eger, the Katona József Theatre in Kecskemét, and the Hungarian National Ballet. “When I become engrossed by a subject, related inspiration enters my life in many forms, seemingly by chance, until they coalesce into an image,” she said about the creative process the lies behind a new piece. “This time I was thinking about the nature of time when I came across Osvaldo Golijov’s Falling Out of Time, a contemporary instrumental piece that is beautiful, accessible yet modern-sounding. I knew right away I wanted to use it. After hearing the music, I sought out the literary work that inspired Golijov, a book of the same title by David Grossman. It then became increasingly clear to me how the ideas in my mind could be brought to the stage. What intrigued me most about time was whether it exists at all.”
Grossman’s book is about the most acute pain that can befall a parent, that cause by the loss of a child (Grossmann’s son died during the 2006 Lebanon War): such a traumatic experience can completely throw into confusion your sense of yourself – as well as of time. And how could that not be the case when, as the author put it, the natural order in which children mourn their parents is upset. In the extreme state of mind that sets in in the wake of a trauma, the whole world is interpreted differently, time, the ordinariness of life and the quality of our world all seem alien. “Handled merely as a straight theatre performance, the story would have a tragic, psychological character, a profound tone,” explains Barta why as a physical theatre company they approach the story in a different manner. “Instead, we show how a person enters what is an unfamiliar state, and how they experience time in a novel way, where pain may even become the source of a kind of transubstantiation, recovery or catharsis.” The play thus questions our relationship to time: can we grasp the passing of things beyond the truism of past, present and future? Does time rule us or do we have room for manoeuvre to experience prolonged exposure to important moments? “I know that during the coronavirus pandemic, and in the shadow of the war, anxiety became a fundamental experience for many people,” says the choreographer, explaining why many people do not want to face negative feelings in their free time. “In my view, it’s precisely the essence and mission of theatre to dig deeper into things that happen to and within us, and to make us see ourselves reflected in a new light. For the viewer, consolation is a realm where loss is not the mere absence of something, but a distinctive vital force.”
The incidental music will be played from a recording so as not to have anything that could divide the audience’s attention. The choreographer thinks live music would take too much of the focus away from the dancers and the stage setting – undesirable for a performance with such strong visual elements. The set was designed specifically for Müpa Budapest: the performance takes place in a minimalist, clean, large space, which is structured diversely and effectively to visualize the special nature of time. “With all my choreography, I envisage the surroundings and visuals in advance. The given space has a very strong influence on the production itself: I do not work with a specific piece in mind, because not every piece can communicate with the audience in a given space,” says the choreographer about the key importance of the location. “It follows that Falling Out of Time could not be transferred to another venue, for example a smaller studio theatre. It is only here at Müpa’s Festival Theatre that its forceful, unambiguous gestures
20. 10. 2022, 7 pm
Müpa Budapest – Festival Theatre
COMPANY: FALLING OUT OF TIME – premiere
Music: Osvaldo Golijov
Dramaturgy: Tamás Szabó (based on David Grossman’s work)
Set: Ildi Tihanyi
Costumes: Andrea Kovács
Lighting: Zoltán Katonka
Co-choreographer: Krisztina Szőllősi
Choreographer, director: Dóra Barta
can come across, or that the dancers can be dwarfed in the vast space.” Barta has worked for many years with set designer Ildikó Tihanyi and costume designer Andrea Kovács, and describes their teamwork as “perfect tuning into each other’s artistic worlds.”
The performers – members of the Badora Dance Company – are not playing specific roles from the literary work, but characters derived from them, who are at once individuals but also open to more general interpretation. The company takes a project-centred approach, with the cast of dancers always determined by the given production. “There are periods when the same dancers return, since it’s invaluable to work with people when we understand each other’s formal language and constantly inspire each other. At the same time, changes in membership always signal rejuvenation and new strengths,” says the company’s founder, for whom working with her own team provides utmost artistic freedom. “In this way I can put all my creative imagination, energies and vision into the piece. I always put a lot of work into the formal language of the choreography, since dancers have just as rich a repository – and can work with their bodies with as much virtuosity – as the best musicians with their instruments.” The spectacular visuals, the special atmosphere created by the music, and the relevant theme of Grossman’s novel take the viewer on a mythical journey and “may even reveal entirely new, hitherto unknown dimensions,” says Barta.
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: Marcell Németh Publication manager: Bernadett Lukács
With contributions from: R. B. F., Máté Csabai, Endre Dömötör, Zsófia Hacsek, Tamás Jászay, Kata Kondor, Ferenc László, István Nagy, András Rónai, Adél Tossenberger, Endre Tóth, Sára Wagner
The illustration on the cover is based on car icatures of Liszt published in the 6 April 1873 issue of the satirical paper, Borsszem Jankó. Source: National Széchényi Library
English translation: Stephen Paul Anthony Translation editor: Árpád Mihály
Submissions closed on: 16 September 2022
The organizers reserve the right to make changes.
Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival 7–22 October 2022
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