János Kárpáti
András Szőllősy:
His Stellar Position

The concert programme at the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and the Arts on October 17, 1998 included four compositions by András Szőllősy, one piece by György Ligeti and one by György Kurtág. Zoltán Farkas, a leading young critic put the significance of the concert aptly: "On my stellar map, in the constellation of contemporary Hungarian music, there are not two but three stars of primary magnitude. They include András Szőllősy. I know I am not alone in this conviction, but apparently, Szőllősy’s oeuvre has not entered the mainstream of international recognition, unlike that of his two fellow composers. It is no exaggeration to speak about fashion when it comes to the international reception of Kurtág and Ligeti’s compositions, Szőllősy’s music, however, is the subject of the affection and respect of a limited number of performers and listeners. As one of them for years, I’ve had the feeling Szőllősy has not been given his due place by the public and by concert managers. It was therefore most pleasing to see that the programme reflects my value order as unequivocally as a declaration, for it sensitively arranged a series of works by all three composers. The evening could have been captioned ‘the living classics of Hungarian music’, were it not that this would sound like cheap advertising and were it not so alien to the personalities of the three composers themselves. Formalities, or respect for authority are alien to them. Yet it is of special importance to me to hear these three composers—who share their roots and then took such different paths of development—in a single concert at last."

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Orchestral style

Progressing along the road chosen in Concerto no.III, András Szőllősy arrived at two related and complementary works laid out on a monumental scale in 1972. He completed Trasfigurazioni in April and Musica per orchestra in June. The apparatus of the two works already suggests the rehabilitation of the large orchestral sound: he envisioned a large symphonic orchestra without percussion or plucked instruments, which in itself clearly indicates that one of his intentions was a negation of the then fashionable clinking-tingling sound ideal. The symphonic orchestra is deployed in its ascetic simplicity, and every instrument sounds as its character requires. That, however, does not mean an impoverishment of sonority—in Szőllősy’s scores at least; quite the contrary, a new world of sound opens up to the listener, which may compete with the colourful range of the "effect music" on several counts.

In this orchestra, individual instruments or their groups are combined into blocks, on occasion complementing, sometimes confronting one another. It is genuine music for orchestra indeed, without "orchestration", as the composer conceived it precisely for the outlay of the traditional orchestra. His approach is in stark contrast with the ever subtler differentiation and stretching of harmonic effects and the spectrum of colours as employed by the post-romantics or impressionism. Szőllősy aimed to integrate, to render a variety of diverse colours in a compact unity.

At the back of Szőllősy’s works there is almost always a twelve- or thirteen-tone row as an organizing-governing principle. Its importance, its role in the work must not be overestimated, though, for Szőllősy was never an orthodox dodecaphonist, always reserving the "right" to weave in other, at times traditional compositional techniques. The secondary importance of the seria is also confirmed by the fact that sometimes one and the same series can be discovered in different compositions: the basic row of Trasfigurazioni, for example, in Miserere, in Canto d’autunno and Paesaggio con morti, in various environments, where very different mechanisms are in operation. Obviously, to him the serial technique means nothing more or nothing different than tonality meant to the composers of old: a frame of reference on which the structure is built. At the same time, this more or less hidden common background or frame eventually becomes an important part, an essential component of the personal idiom appearing in the compositions.

Since its premiere on June 1, 1973, Trasfigurazioni has been performed several times in Hungary and abroad as one of Szőllősy’s most successful and effective compositions. Its value—and its synthesizing ambitions are indicated through the overriding idea behind all the transfigurations being unfolded both as a row and as a real melody. The remarkable unifying intention is also borne out by the fact that the immanent organizing principle per-meates rhythm too. The quantitative structure of the series, measurable in half-notes, determines the clatter of the final groups of eighths in the dramatic closing block. In other words, the organizing potential of the row in the sound also asserts itself as an organizer in time without any forceful intervention. It is perhaps not unnecessary to note that while the serial technique of Messiaen and Boulez pairs the rhythmic values to pitches somewhat arbitrarily, Szőllősy’s procedure is more unlaboured and eventually more logical.

Another highly characteristic feature of the composition is how the peculiarity of tone-colours and the organic nature of the structure are demonstrated at the same time. The famous "bell" (come campana) effect, cropping up in other Szőllősy works, too, is solely produced by the strings and winds by accentuated attacks on the notes mf and f, followed by quick decrescendi. A careful analyst will also realize that the clusters evolve from the "spatial" (vertical) reshuffling of the melodic line and that the rhythmic values of the "bell clappings" derive from the temporal projection of the row.

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In the first fifteen years or so after his revival as a composer in 1964, Szőllősyseemed to be resisting the human voice. It is hardly mistaken to attribute this aloofness, like his negative bias concerning percussion, to his aversion to fashion. Someone who set out on a life of composition with the words of Attila József and Miklós Radnóti was perfectly aware that the poetic text enjoins great responsibility upon the composer, and a good text often paralyses all attempts at musical adaptation, instead of providing the composer with wings.

It is, therefore, astonishing that in 1982 a period began in which four closely related but significantly different vocal compositions were turned out by Szőllősy’s workshop. In Pharisaeos—against the Pharisees—has a chorus for mixed voices to a text from the Vulgate. Not much later Szőllősy composed Planctus Mariae for female voices, a pendant as it were to In Pharisaeos. The two compositions must have been evolving and maturing in his mind together, not only repeating and intensifying, but also complementing and even counterpointing each other. The former is a "masculine" work of harsh tone, a passionately accusing lament, psychic flagellation, threat; the latter is gentle and painful "feminine" music, mourning and consoling. The former is for mixed voices, with the predominance of the male, the latter is for female voices, including two soloists in salient roles.

The Biblical passion of In Pharisaeos brings Kodály to mind, but while the story of Jesus and the Traders is enacted in an epic form, in Szőllősy’s work lyricism is enhanced to dramatic proportions. No other trait reminds of Kodály, although Szőllősy is sailing on nearby waters: he composed for mixed voices on a Biblical text, dotted with suggestive exclamations and an intricate web of polyphonic parts. One of the major tools of breaking free is the use of lean deliberately neo-baroque melodic writing. However, it is not directly linked to baroque music as it lacks lengthy melody tendrils and broad development; it is fragmented and coarse, displaying the signature of an intermediary or mediating genius, that of Stravinsky.

The text for Planctus Mariae was compiled by Szőllősy from two literary works: one is Jacopone da Todi’s Stabat Mater, the other is a fragment of an 18th-century Hungarian passion play. The choice itself implies creative invention: the juxtaposition of Latin and Hungarian layers. Viewing the entire composition, it appears self-evident that the Latin text carries the slightly abstract theme in baroque style predestined for counterpoint, while the passion play passage in Hungarian is set in the stylized melodies of folk laments. Underlying the contrast, however, one may discover identity, as in the great masters of variation: one may find the kernel of the baroque theme-head in the declining lament of an oriental flavour set to the words "Alas, my precious son", only it is inverted: the fifth is replaced by a fourth, the diminished seventh by a major second.

Szőllősy’s vocal work received a great impetus from a commission by the King’s Singers: they asked him to write something for their ensemble and timbres. Fabula Phaedri for six male soloists (2 altos, 1 tenor, 2 baritons, 1 bass) was completed in September 1982. As it was the third vocal composition completed that year, it must have been written in close interaction with the other two works. The connection, however, only concerns the construction and the technique, for the work itself introduces something quite new into his oeuvre. It is risqué and virtuoso, and as such, it has no precedent, or counterpart in either his oeuvre or the entire Hungarian choral literature.

The great first century Roman storyteller, Phaedrus, who earned a name first by translating many Aesop fables into Latin, narrates the naughty story of a Roman wedding in iambic hexameter. Two young men—one rich, one poor—loved one and the same girl, who eventually chose the rich one for a husband. The nuptials, however, were disturbed by a storm, and the donkey carrying the bride—which by chance belonged to the poor suitor—balked out of fear and dashed home. And thus it happened that the marriage was eventually consumed by the poor lad.

Szőllősy was captivated by the story’s humour, its pictorial quality and its dramatic potential for representation. The Phaedrus tale abounds in spectacle, from the bustle of the wedding, the storm, to the gallop of the donkey. Szőllősy did not cringe, especially in this humorous medium. Yet pictorial quality and humour do not exempt him for a moment from using the rigorously contrapuntal technique he chose for himself in his previous vocal works. Indeed, polyphony is even more intricate and sophisticated in this piece, with double fugati, crab canons, voice-pair imitations appearing at any point of the composition besides the frequent canons at the major second, and the listener, delighted by the humour and the pictorial effects, does not always realize what cerebrally structured music he is hearing.

The King’s Singers had a great success in many countries with this Szőllősy piece. This encouraged the ensemble to commission another work for them. The second six-part vocal chamber work was Miserere, completed in 1984 and premiered at the Brighton Festival. Though both In Pharisaeos and Planctus Mariae are religious in spirit, only Miserere can be taken for a proper liturgical composition. It is, however, these very works that convince the listener that liturgy is not the goal but a tool for Szőllősy to formulate a universal human experience. Though counterpoint played a great role in his former vocal works as well, it was promoted to the supreme, the abso- lute, organizing principle in the Miserere. The rigour of construction is further entranced by the monothematic material, as if suggesting being moulded from a single idea.

The consistent but far from orthodox use of the twelve-note row also implies that elements alien to it may also be given a role in the musical process. Such alien matter is Bach’s Lutheran chorale, "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden" intoned in the Finale, the psychological climax of the piece, sung by the tenor to the words of "Miserere mei Deus". Szőllősy is inclined to use a new element towards the end of a work, whose appearance produces surprises and—after the appropriate preparation—purification, catharsis: the peal of bells in a string ensemble (Concerto no.III), a Liszt quotation at the peak (Musica per orchestra), trumpet in a chorus (In Pharisaeos). The chorale intoned towards the end is also such a recurrent formal element, a key moment of the dramaturgy.4

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The lure of chamber music

Although the genres alternate in his oeuvre largely because of his commissions, there has nonetheless been a special inner rhythm that has asserted itself. As we have seen, in the 1970s orchestral compositions predominated, and vocal music in the first half of the 1980s. In the latter half of that decade, it was instrumental chamber music that came to the fore. Fragments of 1985 is a typical border case or a Janus-faced composition. Its vocality points backwards, and its chamber music character foreshadows the chamber works that followed. It is a trio for mezzosoprano, flute and viola with the contrapuntal instrumental parts joined and balanced by a vocal part. The text was compiled by the composer from poems by a friend from his younger days, István Lakatos. Though the lines were picked freely, hence the title, they coalesce into a closed and compact structure in the five extremely succinct movements. This compactness is especially enhanced by the tonally and melodically reinterpreted chorale in the last movement, conceived in the spirit of Bach, yet contemporary in sound and evoking the cathartic closing moments of the passions.

The attraction of chamber music was made all the stronger by a great challenge: Szőllősy was asked by the Orlando Quartet of Holland to compose a string quartet for them. He could not resist, and in December 1988 he completed the composition, a new masterpiece worthy of the Bartók tradition in chamber music. The first performance was on July 30, 1989, in the town of Kerkrade, at the Orlando Festival. András Szőllősy’s Quartet is a par excellence exemplar of the genre, in which the composer demands exceptional mastery of the four instruments and extraordinary musicality for the rendering of the four interlacing parts. There was another major work prior to the Quartet: Paesaggio con morti (Landscape with Dead People), a piano piece dedicated to the pianist Péter Frankl and premiered at the St Magnus festival in the Orkneys. This marked the revival of another genre, since so far, in his music the piano was mainly a chamber music partner. In keeping with his ambition to meet all requirements of a given genre, Szőllősy wished to create a work that was in every way a piano composition, and, accordingly, he adopted the attitude of the great 19th century pianist-composers, and primarily that of Liszt.

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János Kárpáti is Professor of Musicology and Chief Librarian at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. His books include Kelet zenéje (Music of the Orient) Budapest, 1981, Bartók’s Chamber Music (Stuyvesant, N.Y., Pendragon Press,1994.) and Tánc a mennyei barlang előtt. Zene és mítosz a japán rituális hagyományban (Dance in front of the Heavenly Rock Cave: Music and Myth in the Japanese Ritual Tradition. Kávé, 1998.)