Liszta composer not completely self-involved Interview with Mária Eckhardt

 

I actually got involved in researching Liszt by accident. I started my career at the National Széchényi Library and I was given the task of creating a record of their many items connected to Liszt. I had to do a lot of research and become immersed in professional literature on Liszt in order to undertake the task. I realised that he was a fantastic person and that even many of his lesser-known pieces were masterpieces. One can learn about an entire era through Liszt?s colourful and open personality. Finally, a composer who was not completely self-involved but ready to demonstrate openness to any important matter. Even if others laughed about something or belittled it, if Liszt thought there was a new and interesting phenomenon, he would stand fully behind it. The two most interesting examples were Berlioz and Wagner, and he also helped Smetana and Grieg at the start of their careers. What?s more, he was not only interested in those who had joined his school. His generosity and openness very much appealed to me. Later, as I became increasingly immersed in his life work, I also started admiring his amazing intellectual capacities, his endurance for work and the fact that despite not getting any basic schooling, he trained himself to become one of the most intellectual persons of his time. If one reads his correspondence and writings, it is clear that he was amazingly well-read and a diverse person. He was equally interested in the history of art, philosophy and languages. On top of that, he was a very generous person who would teach for free, help his students as much as possible and give an incredible number of free concerts. And of course I love his music. As an active musician, I rank compositions in two groups: the first includes those that perhaps I like at first hearing but I cannot find anything new in them after a while and I quickly find them empty. The second group contains pieces - and this is where Liszt?s compositions belong - that always reveal something new, no matter how many times I listen to them. Of course Liszt also has a few less original works, but the important compositions immensely outnumber them.   

 

 

Twenty-five years is a long time and I cannot remember every detail but one thing I can certainly say: the government took the Liszt Year very seriously, regardless of the political situation at the time. Let me give you an example: on the initiative of the Liszt Ferenc Society, the ministry ordered a tableaux exhibition designed by director of the Music Academy, Dr János Kárpáti, about the travels of Liszt and this travelled around the world in various sizes and languages, even though this was more complicated to arrange at the time than would be today. A Liszt memorial award was made for the jubilee and many people received it in Hungary and abroad who had done work to promote the composer and his work. Many memorial plaques were inaugurated and wreaths were laid and a delegation travelled to Bayreuth on the anniversary of Liszt?s death. Compared to that, this year has been somewhat more modest, of course because of the well-known financial difficulties. Still, I?m glad that almost every Hungarian orchestra is trying to pay tribute to Liszt, playing some of his works. I?m also very glad that the Hungarofest KLASSZ Music Office had selected the Christus oratorio as the main work for the Liszt year. On their recommendation, this composition will be played in many places around the world on World Liszt Day on October 22. It has been performed by various groups in Hungary several times already this year. The ?All Liszt Masses? series has worked out well and finally the music has received the attention it deserves. The Liszt Museum has a pioneering role in making Liszt?s works reach wider audiences. Director Zsuzsanna Domokos started organising the programme for this year more than 18 months ago and she had managed to get some of the best teachers and young talent from the Music Academy to contribute throughout the year. (You can find the matinee programme at http://liszt-2011.hu/en) During the Liszt Birthday Festival in October, his music will be played for three days and such rare pieces will also be presented as a chamber version of the Faust Symphony, a manuscript of which the museum has that has never been played.        

 

 

My tasks include editing the museums? publications. Two of three publications planned for this year have been released so far. The first was Ágnes Watzatka?s Budapest Walks with Ferenc Liszt and the second was my Christus book. The third one will be an album presenting 120 of the most important items in the Liszt Memorial Museum, including manuscripts, musical instruments, pieces of furniture, personal objects, pictures, sculptures and certificates. Full-page photos will be made about the objects and descriptions will be printed in English and Hungarian. I will edit this volume and all of the members of the museum?s staff will be involved in preparing the descriptions. The material will be presented in chronological order. There are of course fewer documents from the early part of his career - just as in the museum - than from the later years. The book is currently being designed and the texts are being written and we plan to publish it in mid-October so that it will be ready for the birthday celebration. In addition to these publications, I am managing the preparation and publication of a series of 16 tableaus entitled Hungarian and European ? Ferenc Liszt 1811-1886. The institutions - schools, libraries, community centres and exhibition spaces - that ensure the posters are properly displayed will get the series free of charge. This way we will offer quality Liszt exhibitions in places throughout Hungary and even in areas beyond the borders inhabited by ethnic Hungarians. We will also provide an English-language version to international institutions so we can cover places where the Foreign Ministry?s large travelling exhibition, which I was also in charge of, does not reach. The success of this initiative is demonstrated by the fact that the tableaus had to be reprinted and we hope that the 700 new copies prepared with the support of National Cultural Fund will be ready by September.

Last but not least, I am participating in publishing a series of Liszt male choir recordings by the Saint Ephraim choir headed by Tamás Bubnó. I have been asked to write several CD booklets this year. Most of them I had to turn down because of a lack of time but if the male choir?s third recording is complete, I will make sure to spend time writing the text because I think it?s a very important undertaking. In addition, I am regularly contacted by Hungarian and international artists, Liszt researchers, organisations, television and radio stations, and newspapers. We are especially pleased to fulfil media requests because it is important that the Liszt Year gets as much promotion as possible.

 

 

The exhibition ?Liszt and the Associated Arts? at the Music History Museum of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences? Musicology Institute will be the year?s largest Liszt exhibition in Hungary. The Musicology Institute originally applied to the National Cultural Fund?s Museum College to organise a joint exhibition by three institutions as part of the ?Uplifting 19th Century? programme. But the Hungarian National Gallery made available such a comprehensive collection that it was invited to join as the fourth co-organiser institution next to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences? Musicology Institute, the Liszt Ferenc Memorial Museum and the National Széchényi Library. On the basis of a scheme I prepared, the list of items to be presented has been put together and more recently, we started making plans with staff from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences? Musicology Institute on how to arrange the material in the displays and the various rooms. An International Liszt Conference will be held in cooperation with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences? Musicology Institute and we originally timed it to take place at the end of November because at the time we hoped that the renovation of the Music Academy building in Liszt Ferenc Square would be completed by then. There is no chance of this happening now, but the Hungarian Academy of Sciences? Musicology Institute will make available excellent premises and much organisational expertise and so the conference will now be held at the Musicology Institute. The abstracts submitted were assessed last November and we recently published the detailed programme which I put together in my capacity as research secretary of the conference. Events will run between November 17 and 20.

 

 

Even though I graduated from the Music Academy as a choir leader, I have headed the National Széchényi Library choir for 41 years more as a hobby. The choir?s main profile is to perform unpublished or forgotten manuscripts held in the library. Some Liszt manuscripts held by the library have been unearthed over the years and as I?ve been increasingly specialised in Liszt research, I?ve been gradually expanding the choir?s repertoire with part of the Liszt repertoire that is manageable by an amateur choir. Because it is possible to elevate an amateur group so that starting with simple motettas, they will be able to sing ? together with other groups ? some of Liszt?s large-scale works. It was a true honour to us this year that we got the chance to sing Missa choralis in the Musica Sacra series, which has become a repertoire piece for us.

 

Four years ago, two of my good colleagues at the Music Academy, Zsuzsa Esztó and Paul Merrick, came up with the idea to organise a Liszt festival in Esztergom. Paul Merrick once came to Budapest as a PhD student too research Liszt?s religious compositions and he was taken by the fact that this part of the Liszt oeuvre is much more cultivated in Hungary ? at least in churches - than in other places. The aim is to make Liszt?s religious works an organic part of the Hungarian and international concert scene and this was our main motivation when we created the Liszt Festival in Esztergom. On my proposal, songs have been added to the works inspired by religious themes. Esztergom is an obvious choice to present Liszt?s religious and vocal works considering that the basilica was inaugurated with his music and the date of the original premiere of the Mass of Esztergom ?August 31, 1856 ? was what determined the date for the festival, which runs through the whole last week of August. A board was set up to prepare the event, which includes the two professors I mentioned earlier, myself, Zsuzsanna Domokos, László Tardy, who is the choir leader at Mathias Church, Károly Reményi, who is the head of the Symphony Orchestra of Esztergom and the Bálint Balassi mixed choir, and Judit Rozsnyai, chief secretary of the Ferenc Liszt Society. Our aim was to develop an event based on local traditions that can grow to become a wide-ranging festival by the Liszt Year in 2011. The financial difficulties of the city of Esztergom hindered smooth preparations, but eventually such excellent musicians as Dezső Ránki, Edit Klukon and Gergely Bogányi volunteered to perform for free. The programme can now be found online and I do hope that many people will go and see these beautiful concerts.

 

Interviewer: Dániel Végh / Source: fidelio.hu