Péter Tornyai (1987-): QuatreQuatuors (2010) – 12: 15 Performers: umze chamber Ensemble, condudted by Zoltán Rácz Recording: 09. 02. 2011., Palace of Arts

Though it is difficult to put into words exactly how, I was greatly affected by the marathon concert given by the New Music Studio on 15 October 2010 in the Millenáris Theatre. The next morning I began writing this ensemble piece (until then existing only as a sketch of a few unconnected ideas), and fortunately I managed to keep up a (for me) unusually fast working tempo over the next three weeks.Both as an instrumentalist and a composer I have the greatest affinity for chamber music, and this is probably the reason that when writing pieces for relatively large numbers of musicians I am tempted by the opportunities inherent in dividing the apparatus into smaller groups. The title QuatreQuatuors refers to the piece’s instrumentation and to its temporal form: four quartets of differing make-up (and a 'joint' or independent percussionist) perform the four movements, played without a break but clearly distinct in their musical material, in which chamber music situations within and between the groups are manifest in various ways.The starting point for the tonal system of the piece is the famous 'row' at the beginning of Liszt’s Faust Symphony, where the twelve notes of the chromatic scale are given as a chain of thirds. Continuing this line of thinking, QuatreQuatuors is based on the four possible towers of thirds, encompassing the entire chromatic scale. In addition to Liszt, the tonal material refers to works by Alban Berg and György Kurtág.

Marcell Dargay was a composition student of István Fekete Győr in the Béla Bartók Conservatory. He graduated in 2004 from the Liszt University of Music in composition under László Vidovszky, and in music theory as a student of Katalin Komlós. Amongst his teachers were Gyula Fekete, Zoltán Jeney, Zsolt Serei and András Wilheim. Between 2003 and 2005 he was répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera House, and since 2004 has taught music theory at the Béla Bartók Conservatory. In 2003 he took part in a three-week composition course led by Tristan Murail, Christian Wolff, Alvin Lucier and Frederic Rzewski, in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Since 2005 he has been a beneficiary of a composer’s grant from Artisjus. Several of his works were written for famous festivals – the Budapest Autumn Festival, the Spring Festival, Music of Our Time, Making New Waves. He has written incidental music for several pieces at the József Katona Theatre, the Miklós Radnóti Theatre, the University of Theatre and Film and the Ódry Theatre. As a performer of contemporary works he often features as a pianist, and there have been several radio and TV broadcasts of him both as a soloist and chamber musician. As a soloist his premieres include that of Attila Bozay’s Improvisations No. 3 with the Budapest Chamber Symphony, Gyula Bánkövi’s piece Sodrás with the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, and László Vidovszky’s 405, accompanied by Componensemble. Since 2000 he has played in a two-piano duo with Dániel Dinyés, and several Hungarian composers (Gyula Fekete, Ádám Kondor, Balázs Horváth, Balázs Futó) have written pieces for them. In 2007 Editio Musica Budapest published his pieces.

The ensemble piece’s title refers to the words circle, the ring of the circus, and the circumstance (circs) etc., try to find a uniformal, but wider and more complex meaning of these different words. I wanted to avoid that really evident approach, when a musical form is an analogy of the form of the circle – the A B A formal structure. The process of the piece is much more sophisticated, in particular cases it uses slow transitions, but sometimes it uses sudden and surprising climaxes. The musical material contains some reminescences and cromatical motifs which I borrowed from Ferenc Liszt’s Via crucis. All of these materials appears in the prepared piano part.This piano part –although is not a soloistic role- is a substantial element of the piece’s orchestration.

Zoltan Jeney, Gyorgy Kurtag, Ferenc Rados, and Christian Wolff. In 1986 for a year he had been private student of the renowned conductor and music pedagogue Albert Simon. In 1999 he was awarded the Music Prize of the Soros Foudation. In the same year with the scholarship of the Herrenhaus Edenkoben he stayed 6 months in Germany. In 2001 he was resident student at the first Ostrava New Music Days. His music is frequently played in Budapest. 'Lists' and 'Variations of a Double' were premiered in London, his string trio 'Imploration' was performed at the Huddersfield Festival, 'Quartet to Christian Wolf' was played by the Seattle Players. Several of his works were recorded by SWR and Hungarian Radio, most recently his 'Concerto for an Absent Soloist and Orchestra' with the Orchestra of the Hungarian Radio and conductor Lajos Rozman. He received commissions from Trio lignum, ANS choir, the Hungarian Radio, Erkel chamber orchestra, Hungarian Cultural Centre in London, Budapest Automn Festival. His works are available on several CDs published by BMC (Budapest Music Center) and he has also a portrait Cd published by Hungaroton.

A paraphrase of Attila Bozay's Series (1970). The instrumental interludes are following in the same sequence but there are no allusions to the actual material of Bozay's composition.