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In Budapest and N.Y., Composers Exchange Music and Ideas Last October, Juilliard composers Justine F. Chen, Mathew Fuerst, Norbert Palej, and Kati Agocs traveled to Hungary for the New York-Budapest Twin Concerts, an exchange program between Juilliard and the Liszt Academy. The following is an account of their experiences.We arrived in Budapest the morning of October 20 and were met at the airport by Balazs Horvath, the young Hungarian composer and faculty member at the Liszt Academy with whom Kati spearheaded the Twin Concerts. The car ride from the airport into the heart of Budapest was our first glimpse of the splendors of the city. The Liszt Academy placed us in a hotel just two blocks away from school—a historic, art-nouveau building over which a giant statue of Franz Liszt presides, and where resident musicians rehearsed and performed our works.
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| (Left to right) Norbert Palej, Mathew Fuerst, Justine Chen, and Kati Agocs with one of Liszt’s pianos at the Liszt Museum. (Photo by Pat Reinhold) |
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We stayed in Budapest a little longer than four days. In our first free moment we visited the Liszt Museum, the composer's final residence in Hungary. There we saw six of Liszt's own pianos, including one originally owned by Beethoven. The furniture was not all originally owned by Liszt, but the flat was restored to evoke the period. There were a collection of scores, presumably Liszt's (including many Wagner operas); original manuscripts; correspondence between Liszt and Berlioz; and extremely lifelike and delicate plaster casts of Liszt's hands. We did not want to leave. Our works were performed as part of a groundbreaking one-day event called "The Day of the Open Gate," part of Budapest's prestigious Autumn Festival, on October 23. The groundbreaking concept for the event, developed by Balazs Horvath and Balasz Kovalik, resulted in something that we probably never would have witnessed in the U.S. To show off the glorious Academy building and draw an audience that would surpass the usual handful of new-music initiates, music was performed simultaneously all over the building: in the Main Hall, the Small Hall, Bartok's teaching salon, the foyers, staircases, and so on. A viola and harp duo played Eloe, Norbert's piece, in the Kupola or Dome Hall—an intimate, wood-paneled room at the very top of the building, where Kurtag likes to play when he is in Budapest. Kati's piece for nine players, Renaissance II, was featured in the gilded Main Hall, where Bartok performed. It was the first time that her father, who lives in Budapest, heard one of Kati's works in performance. Besides the nine pieces from the Twin Concerts program, 20 additional works by young Hungarian composers were played over the course of the afternoon. We ran up and down the wide stairwells of the Liszt Academy, between concert halls and salons, so as not to miss the pieces we wanted to hear; at times, we even came close to missing our own works!Another element distinguished the day of the concert: October 23 is the anniversary of the 1956 popular uprising against the Soviet occupation, a national holiday in Hungary. On the morning of the concert, crowds filled the streets of Budapest, vocal and emotional in their commemoration of this event. A huge parade marched down the main street that passes the Liszt Academy, with fires burning and people chanting. The same people then poured into the Academy when the music began at about 2 p.m. Many of them had probably not ever been to a new-music concert. Among them were families; children wandered freely onto the stages while the musicians played. People responded enthusiastically to our music, and in this intensely politicized place, the music took on a spirit and meaning beyond what we had imagined.Besides the concert, our packed schedule of activities in Budapest included a presentation of our music, and a brief outline of Juilliard's history, to the Liszt Academy's composition department. We also dined at the home of the American cultural attaché Christine Elder, and gave a private concert at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Hungary, George Walker. The annual conference of ambassadors from various countries to former Eastern bloc and southern European countries was underway, and we performed for more than a dozen different ambassadors that evening. The ambassador's residence was on the Buda hill, on the opposite side of the Danube from the Liszt Academy, which is on the Pest side. Also on the hill is the Castle district, the soul of the city, where the views of the Danube are breathtaking and where the great Matthias Cathedral stands. We managed to return to the Buda hill in daylight and stroll around. We also enjoyed some of the nightlife of Budapest, exploring restaurants and bars. The food and drink were inexpensive; one could get a delicious steak dinner with truffles and a half-liter of wine for only 13 U.S. dollars!
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| Justine enjoys a typical view from the Buda hill. (Photo by Norbert Palej) |
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Less than a week after we arrived back in New York, our Hungarian counterparts returned the visit: They came to New York for the first time, to participate with us in the November 1 New York Twin Concert at Juilliard. The identical program of works by Juilliard and Liszt Academy composers was performed—this time by Juilliard musicians. The Hungarian composers—Balint Bolcso, Marcell Dargay, Ilona Mesko, and Daniel Dinyes—were impressed with the level of professionalism exhibited by the Juilliard musicians. They faced a language barrier similar to the one we had experienced in our Budapest rehearsals, but in dealing with the same musical issues in a different context, they honed their clarity of expression. The concert was followed by a composer-to-composer panel, moderated by Juilliard composition department chair Robert Beaser. Balazs Horvath gave a brief presentation about the Liszt Academy and translated for the Hungarian composers. Among other things, we discussed what characteristics are uniquely American or Hungarian about our works, and how each of us absorbs influences in an individual manner through a process of musical "misprision." We commented upon what we had learned from one another's works, irrespective of stylistic differences, in absorbing them through multiple hearings. Like the Budapest event, the New York concert was extremely well attended: Paul Hall was packed, and the audience response effusive.The New York-Budapest Twin Concerts were a thrilling experience for all involved. We are grateful for the generosity of Juilliard donor Susan Adler, who made our trip possible. We hope that, now that it has been established, the exchange of fresh music and ideas between Juilliard and the Liszt Academy will continue through the years.Kati Agocs, Justine Chen, and Mathew Fuerst are D.M.A. candidates in composition. Norbert Palej received a master's degree in composition in 2004. All four contributed material to this article.
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