Ensemble: soprano solo, piano
Duration: 11′
Written: 2017
Lyrics: selected verses by the poem of János Arany, entitled Enyhülés (Patience Courage)
Premiere: 14.10.2018., Nóra Tatai (soprano), Ferenc János Szabó (piano). MINI Festival, Budapest, Vigadó.
Award: the piece won 3rd prize at the János Arany Memorial Competition in 2018.
Program note:
János Arany, the great Hungarian poet wrote his poem entitled Enyhülés (Patience and courage) in 1852. Selected lines of the poem inspired the text of the cycle which consists of five songs. The fragments used do not follow each other in a linear fashion similarly to the poem. For this reason, this cycle may be regarded as a meditation on certain fragments of the verse rather than as a setting of an existing artwork to music. The audience gets shreds, small pieces that never come together completely. This fragmentation and the mood created by the author in the songs faithfully reflect the content of the poem, which is nothing less than the poet’s struggle with depression.
There is a structural relation between the odd numbered (1, 3 and 5) and even numbered (2, 4) movements in the bridge-shaped composition. The first, third, and fifth movements contain longer and musically similar ideas. In addition, the opening and closing movements establish a bridge structure: the opening material of the first movement appears at the end of the closing movement. The two shorter movements, the second and the fourth, are based on the folding and unfolding scales found in the piano accompaniment.
/Rudolf Gusztin/