Levente Gyöngyösi

Levente Gyöngyösi is a real maverick; we grew close very quickly, because our musical thinking is alike in many respects. Since 2018 he has been resident composer of the Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra, so we have worked even more closely together ever since: he is my friend and comrade-in-arms. Behind his seemingly unmanageable exuberance, however, lies an incredibly logical and well-considered musical mind. His opera The Stork Caliph made its debut, in the early 2000s, with the Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra, and later moved to the Hungarian State Opera House. It is a disarming work: completely mature, perfectly logical, yet modern at heart, with novel harmonies. At the time I was artistic director of the Honvéd Ensemble, and I regularly commissioned pieces from contemporary composers for the Honvéd Male Choir too.

Levente, of course, immediately asked what it would be like if a work used not just a male choir but a children’s choir and a women’s choir as well. I agreed — but stipulated that the male choir keep a prominent role. This is how Symphony No. 1 came into being, which I count among the high points of his oeuvre. Since then we have commissioned a great many works from him, among them one of the most influential pieces of the past decade, The Master and Margarita, as well as Tragoedia temporis, premiered last year, which adapts Madách’s The Tragedy of Man. Levente Gyöngyösi is a composer who draws on the collective musical memory with instinctive, enviable naturalness. He handles its little fragments as a master chef handles well-known dishes: he seasons them a little, adds a surprise ingredient or two, yet the essence of the dish stays recognisable.