Compositions

A three-movement symphony for solo organ, based on the chorale in Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.
I. Variations
II. Slow Movement
III. Toccata

A cantata for solo tenor, organ, percussion, violin and harp, on a poem by Czeslaw Milosz

I composed Orpheus’s Harp in the autumn of 2009, at the commission of the Hungarian National Concert Hall. Miłosz’ Second Space English poetry book came to my attention in the summer, and after reading the book “Orpheus and Eurydice”, I knew that this was what I needed to write music for. Unfortunately, there was no Hungarian translator, but since the Polish-born poet lived in the United States, I decided to set the poem in its original English. I commissioned the first Hungarian translation of Miłosz’ poem for this performance.

A mü leírása Magyarul

My composition was inspired by today’s concert for many reasons. First and foremost, my inspiration came from Szabolcs Brickner’s voice, who is my long-time friend and with whom we started our clarinet studies in elementary school. Szabolcs’ bel canto singing style inspired the melodic lines in this composition. Secondly, the organ of the Mupa, whose Sostenuto function plays an important role in my work. When this feature is turned on, the organ keeps on dropping sounds, resulting in wonderful sounds. Thirdly, Miłos’ poem is a bit different from my own and that of other musicians. Orpheus is the first recorded musician to bring happiness to the underworld with his music.

In the early stages of my work, the violin plays Eurydice. The voice of the violin encourages Orpheus to enter Hades’ gate. We will accompany him in the underworld, the realm of the dark souls, where “pine is the darkness of the fold”. Here, Orpheus meets a multitude of dead souls and recognizes many faces of his own past. The organ registers, the bass drum and timpani paint this environment. With his harp, Orpheus sings the ” Song of the Earth” against the emptiness of the dark souls. This is at the heart of the work, Orpheus’ life-affirming song, evocative of earthly happiness, after which Persephone releases Eurydice under the well-known conditions. The “Song of the Earth” is followed by a rhythmic section, where the xylophone and the violin solo evoke Eurydice’s footsteps, which are repeatedly interrupted by Orpheus’ listening and finally his turning back. The loss of Eurydice in this verse comes after a somewhat unexpected turn: Orpheus turns around and, as he waited, sees nobody.

The concluding chapter of “Second Space” by the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Czeszlaw Milosz describes Orpheus’ journey in a contemporary setting thus speaking to us directly. Milos’ “Second Space” is a dimension where the poet opens a small window and where known things appear unknown to us. The alternation of mysticism, religiosity, light and shadow characterizes Milos’ individual poetry, that is echoed in my own twist of tonal musical language and modern instrumentation. The basic mood of the poem is sad: Orpheus (humanity) loses faith in the resurrection, and thus Eurydice (salvation).

To put it simply, the voice of Eurydice is the violin, and the harp is Orpheus’ own instrument. The percussion instruments and the organ together paint the diverse landscapes of the underworld. The tenor narrates through to the end of the composition, mainly as a narrator, but occasionally as Orpheus or Persephone. Special attention is paid to the vibraphone and the crotales line at the beginning of my work, as well as to the use of the organ’s enclosed divisions (Positiv and Schwellerwerk). This sound effect was brought to my attention by my colleague Laszlo Fassang at the completion of the Mupa organ

I wrote this piece in memory of my clarinet teacher, Thomas Friedli who died in a tragic mountaineering accident that year. In this recording, I play the clarinet part and Christa Rakich plays the Richards & Fowkes organ at First Lutheran in Boston.

This piece has been selected as the compulsory piece for the 2020  AGO National Young Artist Competition in Atlanta, GA. It is inspired by the music of Béla Bartók, especially his percussive Piano Sonata. I originally planned to compose two or three additional movements to have a complete sonata, but I abandoned the project. My Symphony on a Chorale by Béla Bartók (2012), however, has three movements.

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.

I wrote this piece for solo clarinet to explore some of the extending techniques I learned through my clarinet studies of contemporary repertoire. I was influenced, in particular, by Domaines for solo clarinet by Pierre Boulez, a piece I often played as a clarinetist, including for my exam for the Prix de Virtuosité at the Conservatoire de Genève, as a student of Thomas Friedli. This is my last hand-written score.

I set this haunting poem about Endymion, who was loved by the Moon by Borges for choir and a small instrumental ensemble. The dreamy quality (and content) of the poem fascinated me and recreated that atmosphere with Ligetiesque micro-polyphony as a winter-term project while studying at Oberlin.

I was sleeping on the mountain top
and spent by the years my body was lovely.
Deep in the Hellenic night, the centaur
paused in his quadruple race
to spy on my sleep. It was a pleasure
to sleep in order to dream, and to seek the other
lustral sleep that eludes memory
and cleanses us of the burden of being who we are on earth.
Diana, the goddess who is also the moon,
saw me sleeping on the mountain
and slowly descended into my arms.
Gold and love in a night ablaze.
I pressed fingers to my mortal eyelids
I wanted not to see the lovely face
my lips of clay were profaning.
I breathed in the fragrance of them moon
and her infinite voice spoke my name.
Oh, the pure, sought after cheeks.
Oh rivers of love and of night.
Oh the human kiss and tensed bow.
I don’t know how long the bliss lasted.
There are things not measured by grape
or flower or delicate snow
People flee from me, afraid
of the man who was loved by the moon.
The years have passed. An inner anguish
brings horror to my sleeplessness. I ask myself
if that tumult of gold on the mountain
was true, or only a dream.
Useless to tell myself that a dream
and the memory of yesterday are the same thing.
My solitude wanders the ordinary
roads of earth, but I always search
the ancient night of the spirits
for the daughter of Zeus, the indifferent moon.

Yo dormía en la cumbre y era hermoso
mi cuerpo, que los años han gastado.
Alto en la noche helénica, el centauro
demoraba su cuádruple carrera
para atisbar mi sueño. Me placía
dormir para soñar y para el otro
sueño lustral que elude la memoria
y que nos purifica del gravamen
de ser aquel que somos en la tierra.
Diana, la diosa que es también la luna,
me veía dormir en la montaña
y lentamente descendió a mis brazos
oro y amor en la encendida noche.
Yo apretaba los párpados mortales,
yo quería no ver el rostro bello
que mis labios de polvo profanaban.
Yo aspiré la fragancia de la luna
Y su infinita voz dijo mi nombre.
Oh las puras mejillas que se buscan,
oh ríos del amor y de la noche,
oh el beso humano y la tensión del arco.
No sé cuánto duraron mis venturas;
hay cosas que no miden los racimos
ni la flor ni la nieve delicada.
La gente me rehúye. Le da miedo
el hombre que fue amado por la luna.
Los años han pasado. Una zozobra
da horror a mi vigilia. Me pregunto
si aquel tumulto de oro en la montaña
fue verdadero o no fue más que un sueño.
Inútil repetirme que el recuerdo
de ayer un sueño son la misma cosa.
Mi soledad recorre los comunes
caminos de la tierra, pero siempre
busco en la antigua noche de los númenes
la indiferente luna, hija de Zeus.

Jorge Luis Borges

I wrote this challenging piece for the 2002 Dublin International Organ Competition, where I won the first and audience prize. I also played my “Toccata on a Hungarian Folk Tune,” which Guy Bovet loved, who was in the jury.

One of my earliest organ pieces, based on a Hungarian folk melody. I actually prepared this as an improvisation for a concert at the Conservatoire de Genève and later wrote it down from the recording.