Harpsichordist Borbála Dobozy was born in Budapest in 1955. She grew up in a family steeped in a love of culture and the arts – her father, Dr Elemér Dobozy, was an internist and cardiologist, while her mother, Dr Zsuzsanna Erdélyi, was an ethnographer. She began piano lessons at the age of five and graduated in 1973 from the Bartók Béla Secondary School of Music, where she specialised in piano. The most formative experience of her secondary school years was her encounter with the harpsichord.Once she realised that the works of her favourite composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, commonly played on the piano were in fact written for the harpsichord, she wished to find her own path to the master through this instrument. This is why, even as a secondary school student – with special permission from the rector – she attended János Sebestyén’s harpsichord classes at the Liszt Academy for two years.
However, she could only continue her studies abroad. Since no harpsichord major existed in Hungary in the 1970s, from 1976 onwards she studied with one of the twentieth century’s most significant performers, Zuzana Růžičková – first at the Academy of Music in Bratislava, then at the Prague Academy of Music, where she graduated with distinction in 1980. In 1981 she began her postgraduate studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg under the guidance of Liselotte Brändle, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Johann Sonnleitner. The influential classes on historical performance practice taught by Harnoncourt, a central figure of the early music movement, proved to be a formative experience and had a profound impact on her musical taste and way of thinking. Yet in his assistant, Johann Sonnleitner, she also found an exceptional artist and teacher; even after receiving her Salzburg degree with distinction in 1982, she remained his student for another year, this time at the Zurich Academy of Music.
The combined influence of Růžičková, Harnoncourt and Sonnleitner shaped Borbála Dobozy into one of the outstanding interpreters of Baroque music. She remained in constant contact with her teachers throughout the years and even performed joint concerts with Sonnleitner – whom she invited to Hungary several times to give recitals and masterclasses. Most recently, in the spring of 2019, the two of them performed A fúga művészete (The Art of Fugue) on two harpsichords in Germany.
After completing her studies, Borbála Dobozy won fifth prize in 1983 at the world’s most prestigious harpsichord competition in Bruges, Belgium. This achievement also contributed to the strong start of her career. She quickly found her place in Hungary’s concert life, receiving regular invitations from the Országos Filharmónia (National Philharmonic) and Hungarian Radio. Soon, foreign engagements followed: she performed in Salzburg, Vienna, Bratislava and Ljubljana, and her concerts in Germany became frequent both as a soloist and as a partner of various Hungarian and international ensembles. Tours in Spain, Finland and Norway came next. Her festival appearances included the Budapest Spring Festival, the Salzburg Festival, the Bergen Festival and Concentus Moraviae, among others. A close artistic partnership developed between Borbála Dobozy and the early music ensemble Wien Barock, as well as with the distinguished Cuban viola da gamba player José Vázquez, who is based in Vienna; with him she toured extensively across Europe. In addition to her solo recitals, she performed with most of the major Hungarian symphony and chamber orchestras, and her list of artistic partners includes a long line of prominent Hungarian and international musicians and chamber ensembles.
Borbála Dobozy's artistic activity has always focused on the oeuvre of Johann Sebastian Bach: she has performed almost all of his harpsichord compositions, including all his orchestral and chamber works. Her recording of the Goldberg Variations, released in the Czech Republic in 2010, received significant critical acclaim in several countries. Lukáš Vytlačil wrote the following about it in the Czech music journal Hudební Rozhledy (2010/11): “…The performer is not only perfectly prepared technically, allowing her to play even the most demanding variations with magical ease, but she also possesses an unfailing sensitivity to Bach’s music. Her thoughtful interpretation is grounded in her handling of time, the tempo of each variation and her finely detailed articulation, which gives the work an added sense of drive. (…) She represents the highest standards of performance and can also serve as an example of how Bach’s music should be played.”
In general, we may say that the defining personal qualities of Dobozy’s artistry include the translucent delicacy of the harpsichord sound, coupled with a powerful, crystal-clear resonance; her supple legato playing and singing melodic shaping; a natural, effortless virtuosity; a wealth of vivid and compelling musical characters; and the plastic, finely sculpted presentation of individual lines within the polyphonic texture.
Alongside the works of Bach, the artist also enjoys programming the music of lesser-known or entirely forgotten Baroque and eighteenth-century masters (G. Th. Muffat, J. A. Benda, Chr. Schaffrath). Her repertoire embraces almost the entire harpsichord literature, including twentieth-century and contemporary works. Several Hungarian composers – György Arányi-Aschner, Árpád Balázs, Frigyes Hidas and Máté Hollós – have written pieces for her, and many premières are associated with her name; among them she introduced and recorded Sándor Balassa’s composition dedicated to Ede Terényi, titled Művész utca 11/a – tételek csembalóra op. 101. (lit. Artist Street 11/a – movements for harpsichord, op. 101). Of these works, Frigyes Hidas’s Harpsichord Concerto has attracted particularly lively international interest.
Borbála Dobozy’s teaching activities are also significant. At the Szeged Faculty of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music she established the harpsichord major in 1993, teaching there until 1995. Since 2009 she has been a member of the teaching staff of the Liszt Academy, becoming Associate Professor and Head of Department in 2015. In 2013 she earned her DLA doctoral degree at the same institution with Summa cum laude. Her dissertation, titled Georg Anton Benda és csembalószonátái (Georg Anton Benda and his Harpsichord Sonatas), was also published in book form in both Hungarian and Czech. She has been a habilitated Associate Professor since 2019. From the outset she has regularly given masterclasses and – in several languages – lectures on music history. For many years she taught at the early music courses in Ráckeve, in Bergen, Norway, and for nearly a decade at the Baroque course series in Thoiry, France; other notable locations include Moscow, Minsk, Bruges, Vienna, Weimar and Prague.
From 1974 onwards – with some interruptions – she worked for more than twenty years as an external music contributor to Hungarian Radio. She has also served on the juries of major international competitions, including in Leipzig in 2000, Bruges in 2001 (the venue of her earlier success, where she remains the only Hungarian jury member in the nearly sixty-year history of the competition), and Prague in 2012. She is one of the founding members of the Magyar Bach Társaság (Hungarian Bach Society) and held the presidency of its Foundation for twenty years. Since the launch of the Budapest Bach Week in 1990, she has taken an active part in the festival’s annual realisation both as performer and as organiser, alongside its founder and artistic director, Salamon Kamp.
Borbála Dobozy has been a member of the Senate of the Liszt Academy since 2012, and of the Board of Trustees of the Academy Foundation since 2017. She has also been a corresponding member of the Music Section of the Hungarian Academy of Arts since 2017.
In addition to her numerous radio and television recordings, Borbála Dobozy’s playing is preserved on the following discs, with a few of her solo albums highlighted: G. Th. Muffat: Componimenti musicali per il cembalo (Hungaroton, 1992); J. A. Benda: Sei sonate per il cembalo solo (Hungaroton, 1997); Chr. Schaffrath: 6 Sonatas for Harpsichord (Hungaroton, 2008); J. S. Bach: Goldberg Variations (Nibiru, CZ, 2010); Sándor Balassa: Művész utca 11/a – tételek csembalóra op. 101 (lit. Artist Street 11/a – movements for harpsichord, op. 101) (self-released by the composer, 2013); J. S. Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier), Book I (BMC, 2019); J. S. Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier), Book II (BMC, forthcoming). Further selected chamber music recordings include: Sounds from an Old House (Kvalbein, Dobozy) (VNP, Norway, 1993); N. A. Porpora: Six Cantatas (Clapton, Pertorini, Dobozy) (Hungaroton, 1998); V. V. Mašek: Concertino for Four Hands (with Anikó Horváth and the Budapesti Fúvósegyüttes [Budapest Wind Ensemble]) (Hungaroton Records, 2000); J. S. Bach: Trio Sonatas (Gyöngyössy, Hadady, Lakatos, Dobozy) (BMC, 2001).
It is also important to highlight Borbála Dobozy’s major writings and publications: Az utolsó Pressburger halálára. Ján Albrecht emlékezete (lit. On the Death of the Last Pressburger. In Memory of Ján Albrecht) (Muzsika, February 1997); Festival van Vlaanderen Brugge (Muzsika, November 2001); “Mindent Bachnak köszönhetek…” Emlékezés Zuzana Růžičkovára (lit. ‘I owe everything to Bach…’ In Memory of Zuzana Růžičková); Georg Anton Benda and his Harpsichord Sonatas (Magyar Kultúra Kiadó, 2014); Czech edition: Jiří Antonín Benda a jeho sonáty pro cembalo (Magyar Kultúra Kiadó, 2016). Borbála Dobozy is the recipient of the following awards and distinctions: 5th Prize at the International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges, Belgium (1983); the Hamburg German Record Critics’ Award (1992, for the album G. Th. Muffat: Componimenti Musicali per il cembalo); the Liszt Ferenc Prize (2011); and the Cross of Merit of Budapest’s 5th District (Belváros–Lipótváros) (2012).
All things considered, the above makes it clear that Borbála Dobozy is among the outstanding figures at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the field of early music performance – and unquestionably so in the Hungarian context. While her work as a performer is marked by artistic humility and profound expressive depth, her activities extend far beyond the concert stage. Throughout her career she has sought to absorb the widest range of artistic impulses, and although she has been deeply rooted in Hungary’s early music education, in the Bach tradition and in the country’s musical life more broadly, her remarkable ability to build connections has enabled her to establish an extensive network with artists, teachers and institutions in many countries. Through this, she has opened up a wide range of opportunities for other Hungarian musicians and institutions as well. At the same time, she has also made significant contributions as a dedicated advocate of musical knowledge and understanding. The true significance of her devoted and multifaceted work may perhaps not yet be fully appreciated today.
[2019]