Our album selection is both an homage and an in memoriam. The music of József Sári, who would have celebrated his 90th birthday this year, and József Soproni (who would have been 95 this year) is radically different, yet not so different that the two composers do not share similar aesthetic principles and influences, which they followed in creating most of their works. This is obviously and primarily due to the indelible (and unrivalled) magic of Béla Bartók, but perhaps also to the fact that Soproni and Sári, belonging to the same generation, approached the piano in a somewhat similar way. However, this does not mean that their music is devoid of a kind of “universality” or “eclecticism” in the noblest and best sense of the word, and bears only traces of “provincial” influences – far from it. The two Preludes and fugues that open and close the selection are clear evidence of Soproni’s admiration for Bach – the genius of Bach is also a common point between the two composers. Sári’s series entitled Snapshots consists of concise miniatures, balanced down to the smallest detail, with such telling titles as Hommage a John Cage (Cage and the influence of the repetitive school are very relevant in Sári’s oeuvre), or It is hailing on the tin roof, as well as Stubbornly, which can be said to be a kind of “topos” of 20th-century composition; the adjectives “relentless” and “stubborn” (and the musical behavior they describe) can also be clearly traced back to Bartók and have folk roots. Although Soproni’s Memory Pages cycle is intended to lean toward late Romanticism, its formal discipline and rich colors often bring to mind the French Impressionists (Like a Stream), but its lightness (almost frivolity) means that Bartók’s early works (primarily) can be considered its precursors. There is no doubt, of course, that many works can also be interpreted as Baroque-inspired (such as Fantasy with Fughetta). In the case of the music on this album, it is not a question of its “validity,” as this is guaranteed by two composers with perfectly developed individual voices. The question is rather what kind of afterlife these works will have. Just as our aversion to contemporary works is fueled almost exclusively by a fear of the new and the unusual (the strange), we can only hope that we will always dare to listen to modern works with open ears and senses, in this case the celebrated works of the two composers, Sári and Soproni.
László Borbély – piano