About the book

Understandable Hungarian Music grew out of Gábor Hollerung's live lectures. The idea behind Understandable Music is simple: the conductor does not hand you a "solution" to a piece, he shows you what to listen for — where the theme begins, how the orchestra answers it, why the music aches or blazes at exactly that moment. Once you have heard it this way, you listen differently ever after.

The Understandable Music series at the Liszt Academy

The home of the series is the Understandable Music (Megérthető Zene) subscription series at the Liszt Academy of Music: together with the Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok, Hollerung analyses the evening's work on stage with live musical examples, and in the second half the orchestra performs it complete. The cards in this book follow the same logic: a short explanation with its musical example beside it.

Not only Hungarian music

Worth knowing: over the years the Understandable Music lectures have covered a great many works — from the Viennese classics through Romanticism to the 20th century, from Beethoven to Mahler, from Stravinsky to Ravel — so far more than Hungarian music alone. This volume collects the lectures on Hungarian composers, but the repertoire of the series is much broader, and the analyses of international masterpieces were given in exactly the same spirit.

How to use it

Pick a composer on the home page and move from card to card. Where a recording exists, you can listen to it right there. You can read about the author on the about the author page.