Compositions

Syöjätär sometimes referred to as an "ogress", is a character in Finnish folklore.  I have first visited Musiikkitalo in 2021, when its main pipe organ was still in its planning phase. A year later, when I saw its rich specifications that included a quarter-tone division and a wind-regulating mechanism, I decided that I would write something for this instrument. A vague desire leaped into action only when I saw the first digital renderings of the  new organ on the International Kaija Saariaho Organ  Composition Competition’s website. I immediately started working out some ideas, deriving them directly from the organ’s evocative visual design and eclectic specification. The silvery wind ducts, like futuristic roots of a tree, creep up a black box reminded me of the Syöjätär, the character from Kalewala. The tangling pipes, the mystery of a black box filled with pipes, inspired me to compose a visceral, mystical, yet very energetic piece. The special effects, quarter-tone division, and the wind regulation on each division are all essential building blocks in my composition.  I am please that it has received the price of the Finnish Association of Composers as well as the top prize of the competition in the chamber orchestra and organ category. The premiere will take place at the Musiikkitalo in March 2024.

I have been commissioned by Miklós Környei to write a double concerto for Guitar and Cimbalom and String Orchestra for Musicians Libres in Budapest, Hungary. The inspiration came from Turkish Oude music for the first two movements. The last movement is a Vivaldian concerto grosso, inspired by the great Concerto in D Major "Grosso Mogul" RV 208. The premier took place on January 21, 2022 by Miklós Környei, guitar and the great Hungarian Cimbalom player András Szalai, with the Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Balázs Horváth.

I. Lento, Improvisando- Allegro

II. Air

III. Vivace

This three-movement concerto is very special to me, not only because it brings back to my clarinetist roots, but it gave me the opportunity to express my very intimate relationship to this instrument. The first movement starts with a melody on the solo clarinet, supported by string tremolos that develops into an exciting development and a ecstatic ending. The second movement is a hopeful and dramatic slow movement exploring the wide expressing range of the instrument. The third movement is a virtuosic, fiercely difficult scherzo, with a solo cadenza for the clarinet.

A three-movement concerto mixing schemata from Vivaldi and contemporary harmonic language for two violins. It is an arrangement of the opening piece in my Organ Book No. 1 that I arranged for baroque strings and harpsichord.

A three-movement concerto for harpsichord and baroque string ensemble. The first movement is inspired by Bach's D Minor Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1052 The second movement is based on the Chorale "Es ist Genug" and the third movement has a rhythmic drive reminiscent of Vivaldi.

A three movement concertino for organ and baroque ensemble. It might be played on a small organ without pedals, even on a positive organ. The inspiration came from Handel's brilliant organ concerti. The third movement is Bartokian, quoting the Microcosmos' "Bulgarian Rhythm" No. 6
I. Vivace
II. Air
III. Prestissimo

The Double Concerto for Organ, Percussion and Strings composed in 2016 is, by the composer’s own admission, a pair to Francis Poulenc’s (1899– 1963) Organ Concerto in G minor. Consisting of one single long movement but clearly divided into sections, this composition engages in an intensive dialogue with the musical past: it quotes not only Poulenc’s piece (literally at the end of the work), but makes reference to Witold Lutosławski’s (1913–1994) Concerto for Orchestra, and Béla Bartók’s (1881–1945) Concerto for Orchestra may also have been one of the sources of inspiration. The piece starts as tone-colour music, with open fifths humming on the organ and vibraphone. Gradually in the strings a melody takes shape, which starts a dialogue with the organ, which in turn starts an aggressive solo. Through a series of varied characters and tone colours we arrive at an extremely virtuoso pedal solo, to which the timpani provide a counterpoint, we hear the first two bars of Poulenc’s Organ Concerto, there are shreds of themes heard earlier in the movement, and finally a strangely mixed fortissimo chord of seven notes concludes the piece.
Gergely Fazekas (Existentia CD Booklet, Hungaroton, 2019)

The Triple Concerto for Cimbalom, Harp and Guitar was written for a commission from Musiciens Libres, a Hungarian chamber ensemble lead by guitarist Miklós Környei. This three- movement piece with unusual instrumentation starts with genuine “genesis music”, as if we were present just after the Big Bang, with the world still amorphous but full of energy (the chords might remind the listener of Ligeti, who is just as important a point of reference for Karosi as are Bach, Messiaen, or Boulez). At the beginning of the movement the soloists do not yet have personality, but their musical material gradually reveals itself, and finally after a monologue on the harp, the three instruments play together. The second, slow movement is symmetric in structure. The atonal music of the introduction and coda, with quarter- tones, flanks monologues by the three soloists which are particularly exotic in colour, and the music is staggeringly beautiful in the most traditional sense of the word. The closing movement, in line with the traditions of the concerto, is a breezy Finale: if the opening movement is about tone colour, the central movement about melody, then the closing movement is clearly about rhythm.

Gergely Fazekas (Existentia CD Booklet, Hungaroton, 2019)

This piece was commissioned by Laszlo Fassang for the opening season of the new organ at the Bartók Béla National Concert Hall in Budapest in 2007. The work has three movements, the first is a Ligeti-esque soundscape where the organ plays an integral part of the orchestra, opening with the lowest, 32' pipes of the organ along with Tuba, contrabassoon and contrabass clarinet. It was broadcast on American Public Media's Pipedreams in 2008. The show can be listened here.

Consonances is a concerto for organ and symphonic orchestra. I need to say this, because many people refer to it wrongly as my organ concerto. It was composed for a solo recital in the national concert hall in Budapest in the summer of 2007. I penned the first sketches in September 2006 and finished my orchestration in May 2007, one month before the concert, not having learned the organ part yet. The piece is twenty-five minutes long, in three movements that are divided with organ cadenzas.

The title consonances, as opposed to the lack of dissonances rather describes the blend, the “together-sounding” between the organ and the orchestra. In the first movement the organ is completely diluted in the massive orchestral sound, sometimes almost remains unnoticed. During his movement which is in fact a big crescendo, all the instruments are playing at the same time. The inspiration came from Ligeti’s requiem from the Kyrie movement, but rather than imitating the techniques of the recently died great Hungarian composer, I assigned each groups of instruments distinct motives to create the desired chaos-effect. In my orchestration I used instruments that match the sound of the new Muhlhausen organ at the symphony hall: right at the beginning of the piece the lowest pipes of the organ (bombard and open diaphason 32, and other 16’ reed pipes) play a dialogue with the muted tuba, contrabassoon, and the rarely used contra-bass clarinet. You might as well catch the bass drum tremolo and the timpani roll. The whole first movement ends with an organ cadenza with flute and clarinet registration in dialogue with the muted trumpet.

The second movement, or second type of consonances, can be described as chamber music in three sections, in a classical A B A variant form. The first and third sections are rhythmical and virtuosic scherzi where the organ is a part of a smaller chamber ensemble of percussion, strings and woodwinds. The texture is much more transparent than in the first movement, even though I use similar motives throughout the whol piece.. The B section is a calm and noble chorale fantasy based on the chorale “Christ Lag in Todesbanden” that appears as a slowly paced fanfare on the trumpets. You might not catch the melody, for the priority between the musical layers are not set by the composer: the listener is to choose what to listen to.

The beginning of the third movement presents the organ as a solo instrument for the first time. An improvised, virtuosic organ cadenza introduces a new pedal ostinato that is taken by the orchestra and driven to an orchestral climax. A new theme is then developed by the organ, bassoons and trombones over a rhythmic section on the kongo and tom-tom drums which leeds to a huge orchestral crescendo with various orchestral effects while the organ and the brass section are taking the lead. The climax result in repeated unison fifths played by the whole orchestra, with organ ornamentation above it. It is purely minimal music, which gives the whole piece a tonal definition, an archaic reference. The themes and the ambiance of the choral fantasy of the second movement come in mind in a reconciliation of themes, in consonances.