Worklist
Worklist
ensemble: orchestra – 2.2.2.2-4.2.0.0-2perc-str-vla solo
duration: 22’
written: 2023
commissioned by the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra
premiere: March 19, 2023, Győr Philharmonic Orchestra, cond.: Martin Rajna, viola solo: Máté Szűcs, Richter Hall, Győr.
program notes:
The world premiere of Balázs Kecskés D.’s Viola Concerto will be performed by Máté Szűcs at a concert of the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra and Rajna Martin on March 19.
The new concerto was commissioned by the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra and the Peter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation; it was written in 2022-23, as a closing composition of the composer’s time as a mentee of the Foundation. Balázs D. Kecskés met violist Máté Szűcs and came into closer contact with the viola when he was working on the orchestration of the new version of Bartók’s unfinished Viola Concerto by Miklós Rakos.
The middle movement of the three-movement concerto, labeled “intermezzo”, is a short, lyrical transition between the large-scale outer movements, which both have independent, characteristic titles. The opening movement – with the inscription “sonata-rubble” – awakens memories of classical-romantic concertos in the listener, but the expectations often turn out to be wrong, the sonata form is realized only in fragments, again and again deviating from its goal. The final movement – entitled “individual-crumbs” – is a kind of collage, in which individual thematic surfaces follow each other with sudden cuts. In the entire concerto, the main role clearly belongs to the solo instrument, which shows the viola’s versatile character-shaping capabilities.
recording: –
perusal score: issuu
buy score: EMB
ensemble: string orchestra
duration: 7’
written: 2022
commissioned by the Altalena Music Group
premiere: May 10, 2022, Altalena Music Group Orchestra, cond.: Marcell Dénes-Worowski, Liszt Accademy, Solti Hall, Budapest.
program notes:
From Picasso to Kieslowsky, artists have explored the resonance of the colour blue.
While working on the piece, I was inspired by the monochrome paintings of Yves Klein. These pictures focusing on only one colour have an immediate and primary effect, while requiring in depth study to explore the almost infinite number of shades present in them. I was particularly struck by the range of emotions these works produced.
I took this same idea and applied it to this composition creating “blue harmonies” and “blue melodies”. There is a single motif at the core of the piece that can be regarded as a story of this musical idea. Using gradually changing orchestral colours, the motif progresses through different characterisations, evoking tenderness, comfort, distress, enthusiasm and reflection.
The colour blue seems especially relevant to our times. I invite you to experience your own shades of blue in this work.
recording: the recording of the symphony orchestra version is available here
perusal score: issuu
buy score: EMB
ensemble: orchestra – 2(picc).2.2.2-4.0.0.0-1perc-str
duration: 7’
written: 2021
commissioned by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra
premiere: February 13, 2022, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, cond.: Gergely Madars, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.
program notes:
From Picasso to Kieslowsky, artists have explored the resonance of the colour blue.
While working on the piece, I was inspired by the monochrome paintings of Yves Klein. These pictures focusing on only one colour have an immediate and primary effect, while requiring in depth study to explore the almost infinite number of shades present in them. I was particularly struck by the range of emotions these works produced.
I took this same idea and applied it to this composition creating “blue harmonies” and “blue melodies”. There is a single motif at the core of the piece that can be regarded as a story of this musical idea. Using gradually changing orchestral colours, the motif progresses through different characterisations, evoking tenderness, comfort, distress, enthusiasm and reflection.
The colour blue seems especially relevant to our times. I invite you to experience your own shades of blue in this work.
recording: SoundCloud
perusal score: issuu
buy score: EMB
ensemble: string orchestra (min. 5.4.3.3.1)
duration: 17’
written: 2020
commissioned by the Budapest String Orchestra
premiere: April 02, 2022, Budapest String Orchestra, piano solo.: János Palojtai, Budapest, Budapest Music Center.
program notes: –
recording: Soundcloud (MIDI)
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: orchestra – 2(picc).2(corA).2(B.Cl).2-4.2.3.1-3perc-pno-hp-str
duration: 17’
written: 2020
commissioned by the ArTRIUM Festival
premiere: September 16, 2020, Hungarian Radio Orchestra, cond.: Ádám Cser, Budapest, Hungarian Radio, Studio 6.
program notes: –
recording: –
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
Chamber
ensemble: Fl (Picc.), Cl, Bsn, 1 Perc, Pno, 2 Vl, Vla, Vc, Cb
duration: 10′
written: 2021
premiere: June 16, 2022, Ars Nova Ensemble, Budapest Music Center, Budapest.
program notes:
The origins of this piece may seem far afield, but let me explain it.
In 2019, the Hungarian xtro realm group published a book, titled extrodaesia. This fascinating short encyclopedia contains theoretical entries as well as poetic and prosaic texts exploring the possibility of a post-human, post-anthropocentric state. At the same time I was reading Kierkegaard’s Prayers, and strangely enough, I found much in common in the two books. Both criticize the central role of the human experience in understanding the world – extrodasia from a secular, Kierkegaard from a theological position.
In writing this work my goal was to capture something from the reading experience of these volumes. The piece contains five sections.The section titled Gaia is named after the Greek Deity of the Earth. It begins in shadows focusing on murky colours. In Machine Soul I depict our over-digitized environment. Prayer 1 is a supplication inspired by Kierkegaard. Anthropocene is the exploration of a possible future landscape. What will be the future of our human culture? The piece ends openly with Prayer 2 leaving the question to be answered by the listeners. My work was born out of fear and trembling, as well as faith and hope. I invite you to reflect on this question and find your own, personal connection to it!
recording: Soundcloud
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: 2 Fl, 2 Ob, 2 Cl, 2 Bsn, 4 Hn, Cbsn
duration: 10′
written: 2021
premiere: October 14, 2021, Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, cond.: Andrej Vesel, Budapest Music Center, Budapest.
program notes:
The work was written for 13 wind instruments, the orchestration of which is the same as that of Richard Straus. It helped a lot to find a connection to the apparatus that the Strauss work, as well as some similarly composed pieces – e.g. After studying Mozart’s Gran Partita, I began to deal with Péter Eötvös’s composition Windsequenzen (Wind Sequences) for wind instruments. The piece, inspired by the Japanese landscape and Japanese gardens, impressed me not only with its special tones, but also with its title, which plays with the double meaning of the word “wind” – wind as well as wind instrument. In the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, the motif of the wind appears many times. I have chosen one such biblical passage as the title of the three movements in my piece now speaking. Through his compositional work, not only did I get closer to the motif of the wind, but my relationship to the apparatus of purely wind instruments also became personal.
recording: –
perusal score: –
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: violin, cello, piano
duration: 13’30”
written: 2019
premiere: January 29, 2020, Trio Y, Budapest, Fészek Art Club
programme notes: –
recording: –
perusal score: PDF
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: flute, cello, piano
duration: 13’30”
written: 2019
commissioned by the Liszt Academy.
premiere: October 26, 2019, Trio Espresso, Budapest, Liszt Academy, Solti Chamber Hall.
programme notes: –
recording: mp3
perusal score: PDF
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: Fl, Cl, Hn, Vl, Vla, Vc, Pno
duration: 11’30”
written: 2018
premiere: May 18, 2018, Ágnes Tóth (flute), Benjámin Pallagi (clarinet), Gábor Kun (horn), Dorottya Simon (piano), Eszter Osztrosits (violin), Imola Bálint (viola), Flóra Matuska (cello), cond.: Marcell Dénes-Worowski, Old Liszt Academy, Budapest.
recording: soundcloud
score (sample): pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: violin, viola, cello, piano
duration: 16’
written: 2017
premiere: August 11.,2018, Teresa Ling (violin), Evelyn Grau (viola), Isaac Melamed (cello), Jeanette Fang (piano), USA, Garth Newel Music Center, Hot Springs.
award: the piece won the 2018 Garth Newel Award selected from more than 90 entries.
program notes: „Accusativus, the winning piano quartet of our 2018 Composition Competition by Balázs Kecskés, recalls the harmonic language of the Romantic period, but with a subtlety that takes it away from the drama and excesses that also characterize that period. So much of the great composers of the past still live on in the today’s young composers, whether intentionally or not. When we went through the score of Accusativus, we thought Balázs Kecskés must have been paying homage to Brahms, because his last movement is built around a tender sighing figure that recalls the opening of Brahm’s G major violin sonata.
When asked about it, he told us he had not been consciously thinking of that work, or even Brahms, when he was composing the piece. The same heartfelt impulses behind that rhetorical motive for Brahms was also behind Balázs even though he was born more than 150 years later.
Accusativus is a suite of 5 short movements, which progress through different characters of meditative, driving, tender, boisterous, and reflective. Balázs creates mesmerizing moments of suspended beauty, with an ear for stillness and reverie that makes one think of Debussy.”
/Jeanette Fang, pianist of the Garth Newel Piano Quartet/
recording: soundcloud
perusal score: pdf
buy score: Kontrapunkt
Keyboard
ensemble: two pianos
duration: 12’30”
written: 2017/2021
commissioned by the ArTRIUM Festival
premiere: May 15, 2021, Görög Sisters Piano Duo, Bartók Radio, Studio 6, Budapest.
program notes: The piece was written in the beginning of 2017. The first movement (Toccata) has two parts consisting of a slow and a faster section. The second movement (Aria) is the harmonization and elaboration of a one-part, then a two-part melody with special piano effects. The virtuosic, chaconne-like third movement (Hommage à K.P.) makes reference to the baroque genre as well as the harmonic cycles of mainstream pop songs. The last movement (Epilogue) is the longest one of the cycle balancing the materials and emotions of the previous movements. The composition’s post-functional harmonic language has its roots in traditional functional tonality while rethinking and re-contextualizing the connection with it.
recording: Youtube
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: piano
duration: 11′
written: 2020
dedicated to István Lajkó
premiere: October 3, 2021, István Lajkó (piano), Óbudai Társaskör, Budapest.
recording: –
score (sample): pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: piano
duration: 7’
written: 2018
commissioned by Éva Szalai
premiere: November 18, 2019, Éva Szalai (piano), Budapest Music Center, Budapest.
recording: –
score (sample): pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: piano
duration: 2’40”
written: 2018
commissioned by Martin Tchiba
premiere: May 17, 2018, Martin Tchiba (piano), Saarländischer Rundfunk, Great Hall, Saarbrücken.
recording: soundcloud
score (sample): pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: piano
duration: 12’30”
written: 2017
commissioned by Domonkos Csabay
premiere: March 8, 2017, Domonkos Csabay, Old Liszt Academy, Budapest.
program notes: The piece was written in the beginning of 2017. The first movement (Toccata) has two parts consisting of a slow and a faster section. The second movement (Aria) is the harmonization and elaboration of a one-part, then a two-part melody with special piano effects. The virtuosic, chaconne-like third movement (Hommage à K.P.) makes reference to the baroque genre as well as the harmonic cycles of mainstream pop songs. The last movement (Epilogue) is the longest one of the cycle balancing the materials and emotions of the previous movements. The composition’s post-functional harmonic language has its roots in traditional functional tonality while rethinking and re-contextualizing the connection with it.
recording: soundcloud
score (sample): pdf
buy score: Kontrapunkt
Choir/Vocal
ensemble: mixed choir
duration: 4’30”
written: 2022
commissioned by the Ars Sacra Festival
lyrics: Psalm 34,19
premiere: September, 2022, Central Choir of the Hungarian Reformed Church, cond.: Dániel Erdélyi
recording: –
perusal score: –
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: soprano solo, violoncello
duration: 9′
written: 2022
commissioned by the STUDIO5 Contemporary Music Group
lyrics by János Lackfi
premiere: April 30, 2022, Viola Thurnay (soprano), Eszter Agárdi (violoncello), Várfok Gallery, Budapest.
programme notes:
Bright colours, vitality, the joy of life. These are the words that come to my mind when looking at János Szirtes’s exhibition ’Oxygen’. The painting I have chosen as the inspiration for my composition, ’Megáll az idő’ (’Time Stops’), is also very dynamic and contoured, but the greenish carpet that provides the background also contains pastel colours, which, at least for me, gives the painting a touch of gloom and sorrow. I thought a lot about how to capture the atmosphere of the painting musically.
In considering how to recreate the atmosphere of the painting in music, I read János Lackfi’s early poems. Four of them in particular, ’To hurt’, ’Hardship’, ’The Past’ and ’In the Valley’ when read in context with the picture, captured my imagination. The mini-song cycle, written for voice and cello, simultaneously evokes elements from J.S.Bach’s cello suites. Impressionistic colours fusing voice and cello are contained within the musical imprint of formal structures, the whole inspired by the works of Szirtes and Lackfi.
recording: soundcloud
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: male choir, 2 violas, violoncello, contrabass
duration: 16′
written: 2022
commissioned by the Honvéd Male Choir
lyrics by János Pilinszky, Sándor Petőfi
premiere: April 11, 2022, Honvéd Male Choir, cond.: Tibor Lógó, Vigadó, Budapest.
recording: –
perusal score: –
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ensemble: mixed choir
duration: 5′
written: 2021
lyrics by Bálint Balassi
premiere: February 18, 2022, Cantabile Choir, cond.: Marianna Vékey.
recording: –
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: mixed choir and cello
duration: 5′
written: 2021
lyrics by Friedrich Rückert
premiere: January 18, 2022, Kodály Choir, cond.: Dávid Dinya, Liszt Academy, Great Hall, Budapest.
recording: –
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: mixed choir
duration: 5′
written: 2021
lyrics: selected verses of the Gospels
premiere: –
recording: –
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: soprano solo, piano
duration: 25’
written: 2019-2021
lyrics by Roland Barthes and selected verses of the Song of Songs
Premiere: May 27, 2021, Nóra Tatai (soprano), Ferenc János Szabó (piano), Hungarian Radio, Marble Hall, Budapest.
program notes: –
recording: –
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: eight-part male choir
duration: 6′
lyrics: selected verses of Psalm 139
premiere: September 8, 2021, Saint Ephraim Male Choir, cond.: Tamás Bubnó, Kálvin tér Reformed Church, Budapest.
recording: –
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: mixed choir (SATB)
duration: 6′
lyrics: selected verses of Psalm 139
premiere: June 5, 2021, Discantus Choir, cond.: Mészáros Péter, Kecskeméti Reformed Church, Kecskemét.
recording: youtube
perusal score: pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: mixed choir (SABar)
duration: 3’30”
written: 2020
lyrics: selected verses of Psalm 34
commissioned by the Hungarian Lutheran Church.
premiere: July, 2020, cond.: Gábor Bence.
recording: Youtube
score (sample): pdf
buy score: Luther Kiadó
ensemble: mixed choir (SATB)
duration: 7’
written: 2019
lyrics by István Vörös
commissioned by the Prelude Mixed Choir.
premiere: Spring, 2022, Prelude Mixed Choir, cond.: Sándor Kabdebó.
recording: –
score (sample): pdf
buy score: contact me
ensemble: for voices (SATB), string quartet
duration: 27’
written: 2019
lyrics by Gilles Deleuze, Claire Parnet, Paul Thymich.
Premiere: April 28, 2019, Kruppa String Quartet, Roberta Szklenár (soprano), Viola Thirnay (alto), József Csapó (tenor), Dömötör Pintér (bass), conducted by Marcell Dénes-Worowski, Gödöllő.
award: The piece won 1st prize at the Generece Competition in Ostrava in 2020, and in the same year it also won the Istvánffy Benedek Award of the Hungarian Composers’ Union, a recognition awarded annually to an outstanding composer under 40.
program notes: “Blending different genres, instruments or instrumental ensembles is an exciting endeavour not only for the composer, but also the audience. Beethoven’s use of mixed choir and vocal quartet in his 9th Symphony or Debussy’s idea of writing a sonata for flute, viola and harp were great novelties at their times. The string quartet and the vocal quartet are well-known separately in Western music history, however blending these two groups can be regarded as a real rarity. When composing Komm, the main motivation for Balázs Kecskés D. was to exploit the possibilities of combining these groups. Individual parts of the string quartet and the vocal quartet can be treated as equivalents (sopran 1 – Violin I, alto – Violin II, tenor – viola, bass – violoncello), the matching materials can be fused or become extensions of each other. Instrumentation and experimenting with timbre gained significance in the Romantic era and is still an inexhaustible repository for composers. The work takes advantage of the same ambitus of the two apparatuses that creates the possibility for special tone combinations.
The basis of the libretto comes from a 1977 volume, entitled Dialogues by Gilles Deleuze, the French philosopher and aesthetician that contains Deleuze’s conversations with Claire Parnet. Moreover, short fragments by Paul Thymich and T. S. Eliot also appear in the script. Even though Dialogues was published in 1977, it is still highly relevant, since the phenomena and processes addressed by them are becoming more and more acute. The omnipresent nature of the internet, consumer society, the revolutionary discoveries in the fields of informatics and biology – all these lead to the crisis, perhaps the end of the humanist worldview. Boundaries are getting blurred between humans and animals, humans and machines, men and women. Concepts believed to be stable are being questioned, binary oppositions are becoming obsolete, gradualness and pluralism is foregrounded. The thousands of years old teleological nature of Western thinking having its roots in Christianity is replaced by a worldview of permanent purposeless process of changes and transformations.
The faint sense of tonality at the beginning of the piece takes the listener into a sphere of a slipping, dissolving world giving one the opportunity to ask questions that arise when being torn between two worlds. Whether the preceding ideas, feelings, concepts, artworks have become irrelevant? Have they lost their power? The composer invites the listener to reflect on these questions.”
/Rudolf Gusztin/
recording: soundcloud
score (sample): pdf
buy score: contact the composer
ensemble: mixed choir (SATB)
duration: 7’
written: 2018
lyrics: psalm fragments from the Vulgata
commissioned by the municipality of Debrecen for the 27th Béla Bartók International Choir Competition.
premiere: July, 5, 2018, Kodály Choir, cond.: Máté Szabó-Sípos, Kölcsey Centre, Debrecen.
notable performance: the piece was performed at the 2019 ISCM Festival in Tallinn by the Collegium Musicale Chamber Choir.
program notes: –
recording: Youtube
score (sample): pdf
buy score: Editio Musica Budapest
ensemble: soprano solo, piano
duration: 11’
written: 2017
lyrics by János Arany
premiere: October 14, 2018, Nóra Tatai (soprano), Ferenc János Szabó (piano). MINI Festival, Vigadó, Budapest.
award: the piece won 3rd prize at the János Arany Memorial Competition in 2018.
program notes: 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/
recording: soundcloud
score (sample): pdf
buy score: contact me
ensemble: mixed choir (SATB), piano
duration: 12’
written: 2017
lyrics by Paul Verlaine (I. Claire de lune; II. Marine; III. Soleils couchants)
premiere: March, 9, 2018, New Liszt Ferenc Chamber Choir, Balázs Demény (piano), conducted by László Norbert Nemes, Liszt Academy, Solti Chamber Hall, Budapest.
award: the piece won the Istvánffy Benedek Award of the Hungarian Composers’ Union, a recognition awarded annually to an outstanding composer under 40.
program notes: The French poet, Paul Verlaine considered poetry as an art of music in itself: lyrics, the sound of which is even more important than their meaning. This gave the basic inspiration for my composition titled Trois romances (Three romances). I chose three Verlaine poems: the pieces titled Clair de lune (Moonlight), Marine (Marine), and Soleils couchants (Setting suns). I applied the poems in three different pieces.
All three compositions consist of two parts: a récitatif (recitative) and a tableau section. During the récitatif sections, the complete lyrics of the poems appear in a spoken-like form, expressed by simple musical elements. These are followed by tableau sections, which are rich-toned, grandiose choral tableaux. These parts have either no lyrics or only contain limited words, emotionally reflecting on the spoken-like sound of the poems.
The composition introduced in 2018 commemorates the 100th anniversary of Debussy’s death.
recording: Youtube
score (sample): pdf
buy score: Kontrapunkt
