Worklist
Worklist
Oratorio
Ensemble: male choir, string orchestra
Duration: 16-18’
Year of completion: 2023
Commission: Ars Sacra Festival
Text: János Pilinszky, Sándor Petőfi
Premiere: September 24, 2023. Saint Ephraim Male Choir, Budapest Strings, cond.: Lőrinc Bubnó. Budapest, Gazdagrét Saint Angels Parish Church.
Note: in Hungarian
Recording: Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: chamber choir or four voices, string quartet
Duration: 25’
Year of completion: 2019
Text: Gilles Deleuze, Claire Parnet, Paul Thymich, Psalm 102
Premiere: April 28, 2019. Kruppa String Quartet, Roberta Szklenár (soprano), Viola Thurnay (alto), József Csapó (tenor), Dömötör Pintér (bass), cond.: Marcell Dénes-Worowski. Gödöllő, Premontrei Auditórium.
Note:
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 Psalm 102 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 years old teleological nature of Western thinking having its roots in Christianity is replaced by a worldview of permanent 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? I invite the listener to reflect on these questions. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: Youtube, Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Orchestra/Concerto
Ensemble: violin, symphony orchestra – 2.2.2.2-4.3.3.1-2perc-pno-hp-str-vl solo
Duration: 25’
Year of completion: 2024
Commission: The Hungarian Radio Orchestra
Premiere: September 1, 2024. The Hungarian Radio Orchestra, violin: Ágnes Langer, cond.: Gergely. Vajda. Budapest, Pesti Vigadó.
Note: –
Recording: private
Perusal score: issuu
Purchase: EMB
Ensemble: viola, symphony orchestra – 2.2.2.2-4.2.0.0-2perc-str-vla solo
Duration: 25’
Year of completion: 2023
Commission: Győr Philharmonic Orchestra
Premiere: March 19, 2023. Győr Philharmonic Orchestra, viola: Máté Szűcs, cond.: Martin Rajna. Győr, Richter Hall.
Note:
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, labelled “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. (EMB)
Recording: private
Perusal score: issuu
Purchase: EMB
Ensemble: string orchestra. The work is an arrangement of the original piece for symphony orchestra bearing the same title.
Duration: 7’
Year of completion: 2022
Premiere: May 10, 2022. Altalena Music Group, cond.: Marcell Dénes-Worowski. Budapest, Liszt Academy, Solti Hall.
Note:
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. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: –
Perusal Score: issuu
Purchase: EMB
Ensemble: symphony orchestra – 2(picc).2.2.2-4.0.0.0-1perc-str
Duration: 7’
Year of completion: 2021
Commission: Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra
Premiere: February 13, 2022. Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, cond.: Gergely Madaras. Amsterdam, Concertgebouw.
Note:
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. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: Soundcloud
Perusal Score: issuu
Purchase: EMB
Ensemble: piano, string orchestra (min. 5.4.3.3.1)
Duration: 17’
Year of completion: 2021
Commission: Budapest Strings
Premiere: April 2, 2022. Budapest Strings, piano: János Palojtay. Budapest, Budapest Music Center.
Note: –
Recording: Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: symphony orchestra – 2(picc).2(corA).2(B.Cl).2-4.2.3.1-3perc-pno-hp-str
Duration: 17’
Year of completion: 2020
Commission: ArTRIUM Festival
Premiere: September 16, 2020. Hungarian Radio Orchestra, cond.: Ádám Cser. Budapest, Hungarian Radio, Studio 6.
Note: in Hungarian
Recording: private
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: mixed choir a cappella (SATB)
Duration: 4’30”
Year of completion: 2024
Commission: San Francisco Choral Artists
Text: Miklós Radnóti
Premiere: June 9, 2024. San Francisco Choral Artists, cond.: Magen Solomon. San Francisco, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church.
Note: –
Recording: –
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: mixed choir a cappella (SATB)
Duration: 4’
Year of completion: 2023
Commission: San Francisco Choral Artists
Text: selected verses from the Song of Songs
Premiere: March 10, 2024. San Francisco Choral Artists, cond.: Magen Solomon. San Francisco, Congregation Am Tikvah.
Leírás: –
Recording: –
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: mixed choir a cappella (SATB)
Duration: 5’
Year of completion: 2022
Commission: Ars Sacra Festival
Text: Psalm 34
Premiere: September 22, 2022. Central Choir of the Hungarian Reformed Church, cond.: Boglárka Berkesi. Budapest, Kálvin tér Reformed Church.
Note:
‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit’. I was deeply moved by this encouraging verse from Psalm 34 when I was thinking about the theme for my new choral work. Who can’t recall a time in their life when they were in great need of someone to lift them up, to comfort them? ‘When I am weak, then I am strong’, is the great paradox of Christianity, as the Apostle Paul puts it. Instead of the philosophy of strength, of power, of being superior to others, perhaps most powerfully expressed by Friedrich Nietzsche, we can safely entrust our lives to the One who ‘a bruised reed will not break, and a smoldering wick will not quench’.
Of all the musical settings of biblical texts, I was most inspired by the works of two Baroque composers, Schein and Schütz. In their choral settings, they often choose a single verse, which they then unfold using a variety of musical means. If there are any of my listeners for whom the content of verse 19 of Psalm 34 becomes personal, my work will not have been in vain. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: Youtube, Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: mixed choir (SATB), piano
Duration: 5’
Year of completion: 2021
Commission: Balassi Kard Artistic Foundation
Text: Bálint Balassi
Premiere: February 14, 2022. Cantabile Choir, cond.: Marianna Vékey. Budapest, Papnövelde utca 5-7.
Note: –
Recording: –
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: mixed choir (SATB), violoncello
Duration: 5’
Year of completion: 2021
Text: Friedrich Rückert
Premiere: January 18, 2022. Kodály Choir, cond.: Dávid Dinya. Budapest, Liszt Academy, Great Hall.
Note: –
Recording: –
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: mixed choir (SATB),
Duration: 5’
Year of completion: 2021
Text: selected verses from the gospels
Premiere: April 30, 2021. Discantus Choir, cond.: Péter Mészáros. Budapest, Fasor Reformed Church.
Note: –
Recording: Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Kálvin Kiadó
Ensemble: 8-part male choir. The work is an arrangement of the original piece for mixed choir bearing the same title.
Duration: 6’
Year of completion: 2021
Commission: Ars Sacra Festival
Text: Psalm 139
Premiere: September 8, 2021. Saint Ephraim Male Choir, cond.: Tamás Bubnó. Budapest, Kálvin tér Reformed Church.
Note: –
Recording: –
Perusal Score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: mixed choir a cappella (SATB)
Duration: 6’
Year of completion: 2020
Text: Psalm 139
Premiere: June 5, 2021. Discantus Choir, cond.: Péter Mészáros. Budapest, Fasori Reformed Church.
Note: –
Recording: Soundcloud
Perusal Score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: mixed choir a cappella (SABar)
Duration: 3’30”
Year of completion: 2020
Commission: Hungarian Lutheran Church
Premiere: July, 2020. Cond.: Gábor Bence. Fót, Evangélikus Kántorképző Intézet.
Text: Psalm 34.
Note: –
Recording: Youtube
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Luther Kiadó
Ensemble: mixed choir a cappella (SATB)
Duration: 10’30”
Year of completion: 2019
Commission: Prelude Choir
Text: István Vörös
Premiere: May 19, 2022. Kodály Choir, cond.: Zoltán Kocsis-Holper. Budapest, Budapest Music Center.
Note: –
Recording: private
Perusal Score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: mixed choir a cappella (SATB)
Duration: 7’
Year of completion: 2018
Commission: the municipality of Debrecen
Text: psalm verses from the Vulgata
Premiere: July 5, 2018. Kodály Choir, cond.: Máté Szabó-Sípos. Debrecen, Kölcsey Center.
Note:
The piece was commissioned by the municipality of the Hungarian town, Debrecen and was premiered by the Kodály Choir at the opening concert of the Béla Bartók 28th International Choir Competition and Festival. The composition’s text is based on the word, Alleluja and selected verses from the Psalms. The Alleluja sections give the opportunity of using the vowels as means of creating harmonic and timbral process, while the sections using Psalm verses are more dramatic standing in a certain kind of contrast with the more static and contemplative parts of the piece.
The work was performed at the 2019 ISCM Festival in Tallinn. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: Youtube
Perusal Score: –
Purchase: EMB
Ensemble: mixed choir (SATB), piano
Duration: 12’
Year of completion: 2017
Text: Paul Verlaine (I. Claire de lune; II. Marine; III. Soleils couchants)
Premiere: March 9, 2018. New Franz Liszt Chamber Choir, Balázs Demény (zongora), cond.: Norbert Nemes László. Budapest, Liszt Academy, Solti Hall.
Note:
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. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: Youtube
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Kontrapunkt Music
Keyboard
Ensemble: two pianos. The work is an arrangement of the original piece for piano solo bearing the same title.
Duration: 12’30”
Year of completion: 2021
Commission: ArTRIUM Festival
Premiere: May 1, 2021. Enikő Görög (piano), Noémi Görög (piano). Budapest, Hungarian Radio, Studio 6.
Note:
The original solo piano version of 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.) refers 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. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: Youtube
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: piano solo
Duration: 12’
Year of completion: 2020
Premiere: October 3, 2021. István Lajkó (piano). Budapest, 34th MINI Festival, Óbudai Társaskör.
Note:
What could be the speciality of a genre to which so many different composers connected from Beethoven to Bartók, from Smetana to Kurtág? Is it lightness, brevity, transiency, or ambiguity? The French word bagatelle (trifle, nothing) can mean all of them.
The best bagatelles in the history of music, however, are not superficial at all. Although they grasp the moment, and they are often unpredictable and whimsical, they still contain deep, pithy, and original ideas. The inspiration to compose my own bagatelles was partly drawn from the Beethoven anniversary in 2020. In that year, I spent a lot of time studying the composer’s pieces of the same genre for the piano, especially the two late cycles. I was fascinated by the freedom and the clear and transparent structure of Beethoven’s works.
The titles of the pieces in my own series are: 1. Nocturne, 2. Restlessly, 3. Confession and reminiscence, 4. A simple song. (The pieces may be played on their own, independently of the series, too.) Familiar and unfamiliar slivers of sounds billow in the work. We can recognise a chord, but why does it get discoloured? We are listening to a melody, but what becomes of it? We might understand where we come from, but where are we going? We are in the third decade of the 21st century. (Balázs Kecskés D.)
Recording: Youtube, Soundcloud
Purchase: EMB
Ensemble: piano solo
Duration: 7’
Year of completion: 2018
Premiere: November 18, 2019. Éva Szalai (piano). Budapest, Budapest Music Center.
Note: in Hungarian
Recording: –
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: piano solo
Duration: 2’40”
Year of completion: 2018
Commission: Martin Tchiba
Premiere: May 17, 2018. Martin Tchiba (piano). Saarbrücken, Saarländischer Rundfunk, Great Hall.
Note: In Hungarian
Recording: Youtube, Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: piano solo
Duration: 12’30”
Year of completion: 2017
Commission: Domonkos Csabay
Premiere: April 8, 2017. Domonkos Csabay (piano). Budapest, Old Liszt Acadamy.
Note:
The piece was written in 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.) refers 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. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: Youtube, Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Kontrapunkt Music
Chamber
Ensemble: violoncello, piano. The work is an arrangement of the original piece for piano solo bearing the same title.
Duration: 12’
Year of completion: 2024
Premiere: March 25, 2024. Domonkos Hartmann (violoncello), Domonkos Csabay (piano). Budapest, Liszt Academy, Solti Hall.
Note: in Hungarian
Recording: –
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: flute (picc.), clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, percussion (1 player), piano, 2 violons, viola, violoncello, contrabasso
Duration: 10’
Year of completion: 2021
Commission: Péter Eötvös Foundation
Premiere: June 16, 2022. Ars Nova Ensemble, cond.: Jaehyuck Choi. Budapest, Budapest Music Center.
Note:
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! (Kecskés D.)
Recording: Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: 2 Fl, 2 Ob, 2 Cl, 2 Bsn, 4 Hn, Cbsn
Duration: 10’
Year of completion: 2021
Commission: Péter Eötvös Foundation
Premiere: October 14, 2021. Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, cond.: Andrej Vesel. Budapest, Budapest Music Center.
Note:
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. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: private
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: violin, violoncello, piano. The work is an arrangement of the original piece for flute, cello and piano bearing the same title.
Duration: 13’30”
Year of completion: 2019
Premiere: January 29, 2020. Trio Y. Budapest, Fészek Művészklub.
Note: –
Recording: –
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: flute, violoncello, piano
Duration: 13’30”
Year of completion: 2019
Premiere: October 26, 2019. Trio Espresso. Budapest, Liszt Academy, Solti Hall.
Note: in Hungarian
Recording: private
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: flute, clarinet, horn, piano, violin, viola, violoncello
Duration: 11’30”
Year of completion: 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 (violoncello), cond.: Marcell Dénes-Worowski. Budapest, Old Liszt Academy.
Recording: Youtube, Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: violin, viola, violoncello, piano
Duration: 16’
Year of completion: 2017
Premiere: August 11, 2018. Teresa Ling (violin), Evelyn Grau (viola), Isaac Melamed (violoncello), Jeanette Fang (piano). USA, Hot Springs, Garth Newel Music Center.
Note:
„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 Brahms’ 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)
Recording: Youtube, Soundcloud
Perusal Score: PDF
Purchase: Kontrapunkt Music
Vocal
Ensemble: mezzosoprano, violoncello
Duration: 9’
Year of completion: 2022
Text: János Lackfi
Premiere: April 30, 2022. Viola Thurnay (mezzosoprano), Eszter Agárdi (violoncello). Budapest, Várfok Gallery.
Note:
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. (Kecskés D.)
Recording: Soundcloud
Perusal Score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: soprano, piano
Duration: 25’
Year of completion: 2021
Text: Roland Barthes, Song of Songs
Premiere: May 27, 2021. Nóra Tatai (soprano), János Szabó Ferenc (piano). Budapest, Hungarian Radio, Marble Hall.
Note: –
Recording: private
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer
Ensemble: soprano, piano
Duration:11’
Year of completion: 2018
Text: János Arany
Premiere: October 14, 2018. Nóra Tatai (szoprán), János Szabó Ferenc (zongora). Budapest, MINI Festival, Vigadó.
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.
The Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music announced a competition in 2018 with the support of the János Arany Memorial Year Committee. Composers were expected to compose innovative pieces based on the poet’s work. The song cycle of Balázs Kecskés D. was written for this occasion that was awarded 3rd prize. (Rudolf Gusztin)
Recording: Soundcloud
Perusal score: PDF
Purchase: Contact the composer