Recollections of the teaching of György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados

To be a student of György Kurtág is a privelege that has been given only to a few people in the world. We, who have been able to work with him regularly, are extremely lucky. However, the standards we have inherited from him are not well tolerated by every colleague and student. Thus, if one insists on them, they may become sources of conflict, and if one gives up this maximalism for peace’s sake, it results in inner tension and frustration. Moreover, one can rarely be fully satisfied with oneself, too, since the critical and self-critical voice never falls silent in one’s own mind.

Despite all this, I would not want to give up this privilege and responsibility. They show the way to the more profound layers of music, protect one from superficiality, and inspire to improve continually.

I would like to summarise what I learnt from Kurtág most concisely like so: “There is no note without emotional backing.” Emotional backing is, at the same time, generally a sort of intellectual background, too, a mix of diverse knowledge, awareness, experience, sensitivity. Let us add that this spirit is even more complete if one could take lessons with Ferenc Rados, too. The two approaches are vastly different, and still related. Both masters seem to consider notes as real beings, whom one of them approaches as a psychologist, the other as a sociologist. Rados looked at music through understanding it as a whole, in a more practical fashion, and he examined individual notes not so much in their “individual relationships”, but in groups, according to the roles they fulfilled in the musical syntax. If the two approaches are projected onto each other, a framework is gained in which one, according to one’s talent and character, can develop one’s own rich perspective and performing style. While Kurtág is subjective in the most intensive way and he builds on personal engagement, Rados is nearly unquestionably objective and stands above personal taste. These two approaches touch and merge within us lucky ones, and become a rich soil from which to grow and fulfill our art. Growth and fulfillment, naturally, are still our own lifelong task and duty.