Professors
Gábor Csalog – piano, chamber music
"In Kurtág's case, the unsolvable mystery, the professional secrets of the great compositor are inseparable from the human greatness. I’ve never seen such a curious man before. Open-mindedness, thirst for knowledge, sedulity, work, humbleness, and helpfulness are the core of his personality. His musical genius is only an “extra addition” to all this."
András Kemenes – piano, chamber music
"For the first time I heard “uncle Gyuri” playing the piano at the age of 12, in 1973. He was talking about his yet in the making piece, Games, at the 3rd Kodály Seminar in Kecskemét. His performance of Palm Stroke (1) is engraved on my memory forever."
Péter Bársony – viola, chamber music
"For me, Ligeti’s and Kurtág’s music, in two different ways, but both are about searching for my boundaries and expanding them. Beside the aesthetics and the message both composers’ work is a quintessential teaching, in which the performer becomes a part of the performance through the effort he puts into it."
György Déri – cello, chamber music
"For me Kurtág means the simplicity and refinement I am trying to achieve."
Balázs Horváth – composition, analysis
"Only few composers in the history of 20th century music were capable of continuous self-renewal while always remaining musically recognizable. (Stravinsky and Ligeti are the ones to come to my mind first.) The same personality lies within each piece, the compositional techniques are similar, yet each work is a step (we could even say: a jump) forward.
This quality of Ligeti’s oeuvre is, however, dwarfed by the fact that he is the only composer whose music always makes me extremely excited – be that excitement disturbing or amusing.
Ligeti’s music has had a great impact on my compositions, too. In the past ten years I wrote several pieces that reflect the mentality of Ligeti, sometimes even by verbal quotations."
Csaba Klenyán – clarinet, chamber music
"All through my life encounters with such people as György Kurtág were very fortunate and determining. I had been invited to the Bartók Seminar in Szombathely to premiére one of his pieces. Until that I hadn’t met him and I hadn’t played his pieces. After our first meeting in Szombathely we had been working on one piece (the one written on the occasion of Sándor Veress’ 80th birthday, called Lebenslauf) for a whole week, six hours a day. That’s when I understood what workshop work and intense concentration mean, and what my paths of self-improvement are. That the main thing is the joy of playing music. "
Judit Szabó – string quartet, chamber music
"Once in my student years at the Academy we were preparing for a competition with the Auer String Quartet. We had chosen Kurtág's 12 Microludes and asked him to include them in the material of our chamber music classes. On a quite tensed up rehearsal one part of the piece just wasn’t to his liking, no matter how many times we played it again and again. I felt so helpless that I burst into tears. “Do not cry out of helplessness! Cry out of anger!”, came his instruction straight away. Then, regarding the piece, he added comfortingly: “It’s not easy for anyone…” "
András Szalai – cimbalom, chamber music
"The 1961 première of Kurtág’s first piece for cimbalom is related to my father. It was an experience for a lifetime for both of them, so thus already in my early childhood I had been introduced to Kurtág’s music as an essential component of the musical language of our home. Nevertheless, the ever-deepening understanding of his music keeps providing me fresh experiences. Kurtág’s work does not simply enlighten itself, but also casts a light upon the matters, roots, quintessence of ages long passed. The intensity of his personality becomes a part of the performance practice when working together. A good example of this is that he reveals me the above-mentioned 1961 piece with the same vigorous spirit as he did for my father, 56 years ago."