Recollections of the teaching of György Kurtág

How did you come into contact with György Kurtág? When did you work together, when did he teach you? 

I am not the first one, moreover, not even the first generation who had the chance to collaborate with György Kurtág. My father, József Szalai met him in 1961 at a philharmonic audition, where Kurtág came up with the idea that the characteristic provincial shows of the regime at the time were much more practical to perform with a cimbalom for chamber music, as not all venues were equipped with a piano and a cimbalom is easier to carry to the countryside.

At the very beginning he only started to familiarize himself with the instrument for practical reasons, however, Kurtág soon fell in love with the cimbalom. He spent months visiting my father’s sublet in Szent István Park to listen to him play and make notes, they were trying out loads of ideas for the instrument. This period left a deep impression on both of them. Gyuri bácsi even recently commented on these meetings that he had never had a more comprehensive insight into the soul of any instrument than there and then. In the very same year he composed the Eight Duos for violin and cimbalom, with even Zoltán Kodály attending the premier, where Judit Hevesi and József Szalai had to repeat the performance, given the overwhelming success. From then on the cimbalom became one of Kurtág’s fundamental instruments.

24 years later I was basically born into Kurtág’s music. My father regularly practiced his works, by that time mainly for his own entertainment. When I started playing the cimbalom, the Játékok (Games) transcriptions included in Cimbalomiskola (Cimbalom Lessons) made me feel right at home musically, where I felt utterly free. My father could hardly wait to share all those ideas about performance with me that he had heard from Gyuri bácsi earlier, but by passing these along, time and again, he also virtually conjured up Kurtág’s character as well. So by the time we first met — where long ago both the Kurtágs and ourselves were attending a concert in the Academy of Music — I already welcomed him as an acquaintance. It felt equally cozy when later I was allowed to play for him, although his expectations towards the completeness of musical expression were not compromised an iota on that account. So I was never taught by him within an institutional framework, but I think our family connections became an institution of sorts for us.

What does György Kurtág’s art and teaching mean to you and how has it influenced your career?

Again, I have to refer to my father. I would really struggle to find a better example to distinctly illustrate the impact that Kurtág’s art and teaching can imply. My father first heard classical music at the age of 20, twelve years before meeting Kurtág. Up to that point he kept playing the popular musical entertainment of country life in those days locally, in and around his native village in Tolna county. He taught himself to read music on his own, by his own decision. He arrived to Budapest in 1949 with the aim of improving his existing musical knowledge, but his meeting with Aladár Rácz changed his life forever. The world-famous cimbalom player played such music — Couperin, Bach and Scarlatti amongst others — and to such a high standard that completely fascinated my father. From then on he spent nine years studying at the Academy of Music, where he graduated as Aladár Rácz’s student.

I have asked him many times how Kurtág’s music, generally regarded fresh, affected him shortly after all this. He always replied the same. For him Kurtág’s music meant the exact same thing as Aladár Rácz’s performance. The possibility to explore a new, unknown, extremely attractive musical world just as well, as an extremely consistent attitude of sensitivity in playing music, to which he himself could thoroughly relate. Simply put, everything coming from Kurtág felt authentic, sincere and his genuine self to him. This attitude and the inherent experiences naturally led him to avoid complacency, and to leave the trodden path again and again. This is the example that demonstrates the impact of Kurtág’s artistic attitude, partly through my father, upon my own carrier.

If you can, please recall a memorable situation and how he taught certain musical works and what you learned from him during your collaboration! 

One of my most enduring memories — that I keep picturing at every single performance — is not rooted exclusively in music, as is so typical of Kurtág. We are listening to the epilogue of the short, three-note staccato motif imitating a stretta, at the end of the third movement of a solo cimbalom piece entitled Szálkák (Splinters). One of Kurtág’s fundamental requests for the performance was to preclude both agogics and rubato from the onset of the motifs, while still conveying the erratic nature of their meeting points. And not only by accents but with a certain internal poise, because it defines the fundamental character of the whole segment. It wasn’t an easy task, I couldn’t do it quite right for a long time, although Gyuri bácsi really insisted on it. The only thing that made me manage to cope with it was when he helped me out with an exceptionally informative example and asked me to imagine the famous scene from Chaplin’s 1925 Gold Rush behind the music: when he’s dancing with bread rolls on forks. I can only play this part with this image in my mind ever since, and that’s the sole interpretation I actually feel valid.

Another decisive thought of his, that I have frequently heard from him in his classes, regards the simplicity of interpretation of certain musical works. I quote this example of his a lot when teaching because I think it’s timeless, even though it appears no more than this: “Boci, boci tarka” (a Hungarian nursery rhyme about as basic as Baa, Baa, Black Sheep ) doesn’t need to be delivered as “Bhoocci, bhoocci thaarkhaa”.

Do you have a characteristic, memorable, instructive or funny story about your joint work that you would like to share?

A moment comes to mind about his capacity to remember, that surprised me even knowing full well his legendary memory. In 2009 he composed a short piece in memory of Ildikó Vékony. The day he finished it, he let me know he wanted to try it with cimbalom too, because he thought of sounding it with a technique where the strings are played by fingertips, thus creating the sensation of the strings vibrating on their own. Up until that point I had only met him somewhere else but never in our apartment. He last visited us there in the 70s, but when I was about to tell him the address, he immediately recited it, without any hesitation.