There can hardly be any more valuable gift for one’s 80th birthday, even when in this case it is really more a very lucky accident: on January 10, 2016, the Ottensamer Clarinet Trio and the Vienna Philharmonic presented the world premiere of a Triple Concerto by Ivan Eröd. Christian Heindl presents a portrait of the Hungarian-Austrian composer.
As a Refugee Welcomed into Austria
The late summer of 2015 saw the arrival of a wave of foreign refugees into central and western Europe, but not for the first time. Many times in the past, Austria was reckoned with this challenge and each time arose to the challenge excellently, without animosity and polemics. Such as in 1956, when after the crushing of public protests against the dictatorial communist system, more than 200,000 Hungarians left their homeland in order to find refuge in a democratic country. Among them: a twenty-year-old Ivan Eröd, in whose still young life already twice had to experience a politically caused disruption. Born on January 2, 1936 as son of a business man in Budapest, he experienced already as a child not merely the initial emotional horrors of the Second World War marginally, but also directly: especially during the occupation of the country by German troops starting in the spring of 1944 and in the course of their horrible Jewish persecution – many members of his family, including his grandparents and brother Endre, were victims of the Holocaust.
Studies with the Best
In 1951 Eröd began his education at the Budapest University of Music, where Pál Kadosa (piano), Ferenc Szabó (composition) and Zoltan Kodály (lectures on “Hungarian Folk Music) were among his teachers. His own compositions from these early years show especially an influence from the works of Bela Bartok, who set the standard for the young Hungarian. However, immediately before completing his studies, Eröd realized the after the crushing of the Hungarian public protests and the resulting politically hopeless situation, he was compelled like so many of his countrymen and colleagues to escape to Austria in December of 1956. He established himself in Vienna but had to completely start over again. After his studies at the Vienna Music Academy with Richard Hauser (piano) and Karl Schiske (composition), the developments of the Second Viennese School became the focus of his works.
Music as a Form of Communication
He closely studied twelve-tone and serial techniques, exemplified by his chamber music and the buffo short opera „La Doncella, el marinero y el estudiante“ op. 9 (1960) after Federico Garcia Lorca, among others. The full-length opera „Die Seidenraupen“ op. 10 with a libretto by Richard Bletschacher (1964/68) marked ultimately a stylistic turning point: starting with a free twelve-tone style, Eröd utilized additionally tonal materials after observing the reception of new music and from the experience gained as a reproducing artist. On the occasion of the controversial reception of the opera’s world premiere during the Wiener Festwochen in 1968, Eröd defined his compositional creed, which determines his music even until today: “Art is communication. When I write music, then with the purpose that it will be heard and understood. I must utilize a language, that is capable of being understood by at least a great number of people… I take great lengths of consideration for the performers. For two reasons: first of all I do not want that the enormous effort it might take to fight with the musical material to detract from the joy of its performance. And secondly, I want that my music sounds as it is meant to be, meaning that because of its difficulty one should not throw overboard the intentions and theater – unfortunately indirectly not intended from the composers – but is played with an obligatory loudness. The latter I have experienced especially often. It disgusts me and I absolutely want to avoid it. I profess a belief in melody, in form, and in effects, three basic conditions that guarantee communication with quality … I am not a purist when it comes to stylistic material. We have thousands of years of a musical past behind us, I see no reason to shut myself off from it. Absolute originality of language is the enemy of communication. Language is agreement. The musical language included.”
Virtuoso Lightness à la Mendelssohn
The consequent style change found in „Die Seidenraupen“ completed Eröd in the area of chamber music with the first Violin Sonata op. 14 (1969/70). Almost all of the works during the 1970s and early 1980s (exceptions are the Second String Quartet op. 26 and especially the Second Piano Trio op. 42) exhibit a primarily joyful and entertaining color, which is a direct reaction of Eröd’s postulated relaxation of contemporary music toward an immediately understandable musical language when can be grasped in a looser atmosphere. Characteristic of him in this phase is also the extensive and consequent use of classical types of form, which he uses until he turns to freer conceptions which then dominate his later works such as the “Concert Fantasy” op.35 (1980/81). And ultimately one discovers in the final rondo of the first sonata such a “virtuoso lightness, like in the spirit of Mendelssohn” (Eröd) which is in the opinion of the composer seldomly found in the music of his contemporaries and which has simply disappeared in modern music. For him it is a characteristic of many of his scherzo movements, even until today. That Eröd has not in any way forgotten the techniques he learned during his Viennese studies ad acta, but are harnessed in his own unique aesthetic, is shown for example in the “Three Pieces” for Violin op.27 (1978/79) in which he handles the satirical answer of tonality to twelve-tone technique as a seven tone row strictly following the rules of the tone-row principles.
Biographical Elements as Stimulus and Key
Far from the idea of program music, many of Eröd’s works contain connections to immediate biographical experiences or historical events, which provides then the key to understanding the specific work: the Violin Concerto, op. 15 (1973), the „Krokodilslieder“ (Crocodile Songs) op. 28 (1979/80), the Viola Concerto, op. 30 (1979/80) as well as the Second String Sextett, op. 68 (1996) relate the intimate closeness to his wife and his children. The song cycle „Über der Asche zu singen“ (To Sing over the Ashes) op. 65 (1994) grasps the experience of the racist persecution of his family during his childhood. However, in a rare case of working simultaneously on two pieces mirrors a parallel to the songs with his creation „Bukolika“ for chamber ensemble op. 64 (1994) written in a relaxed mood, portraying the tranquility of his recently newly acquired idyll in his Hungarian country house. The Concerto for Violoncello and Orchester op. 80 (2005) is dedicated to his brother – a trained cellist – murdered in the concentration camp in Buchenwald.
A Golden World Premiere
The new work will appear however completely free of such connections, that will be heard for the first time only eight days after Eröd’s 80th birthday: on January 10, 2016, Ernst, Daniel and Andreas Ottensamer as well as the Vienna Philharmonic under the leadership of Andris Nelsons will give birth to the Triple Concerto for Three Clarinets and Orchestra, op.92; completely in the style according a jubilee in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. That it happens to be an (almost) accidental calendar coincidence – the already long planned commission grant had been delayed – should not really cloud the beautiful visual. But of one thing in view of this premiere one can be sure of: there will be not be found a hint of a didactic late work realization or epiphany.
Christian Heindl / Steven Scheschareg
Link: www.ivan-eroed.at