As a fourth-year student at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Miklós Kocsár had already completed his graduation pieces: Hegyi legények (Mountain Lads) (1957), for tenor solo and male choir, based on Neo-Greek folk poetry and featuring the brass instrumentation which would remain characteristic of his style, and Kürtverseny (Horn Concerto) (1957), which attracted attention not only for its choice of genre, but above all for its second movement, originally notated without bar lines and sounding like a 'composed cadenza.'[1] Both works were recorded by the Radio even before his graduation concert: the cantata was performed by the Honvéd Male Choir under the direction of Lajos Vass, and the concerto by the Radio Orchestra with Ferenc Tarjáni as soloist. Thus, in an unusual way, he was able to present not only the scores of the works, but also their recordings.[2]
After successfully graduating, however, Kocsár’s career did not take off immediately. He tried to make a living by composing film music, incidental music for the theatre, choral works, dance pieces, and folk song arrangements.[3] These tasks – particularly the occasional music he wrote for the Madách Theatre from 1963 onward – did divert his energy from writing 'serious' works, yet they also provided important opportunities for experimentation for the young composer. He would sometimes compose extra pieces, not out of necessity, but simply to hear them performed at the theatre orchestra’s rehearsals.[4] (One 'serious' work did eventually emerge from this period: Emlékképek a XX. század '50-es éveiből [Memories from the '50s of the Twentieth Century], completed in 2016.) Another reason for the 'break' is that Kocsár and his fellow composers of the same generation – after the cultural isolation of the first half of the 1950s – became acquainted with the experiments of composers from the surrounding countries, particularly those associated to the Darmstadt School and the Warsaw Autumn. They recognized that there were paths of musical development beyond the Bartókian one. [5] As a result, Kocsár no longer felt that his musical language was sufficiently modern:[6] for example, he did not premiere Vonósnégyes (String Quartet) (1960) and Hegedű-szólószonáta (Violin Solo Sonata) (1961) written in this period, until forty years later.[7] For him, the obstacle was not so much to assimilate new influences as to 'digest' them and integrate them into his own style.[8] The rapid processing was primarily hindered by the fact that Kocsár’s temperament was far removed from a lack of melody, the use of many tense intervals, and the extreme accumulation of dissonance, so, he had to spend years developing new harmonic relationships, from which his new style, including his characteristic sixth-second interval combination, could eventually emerge.[9]
The eight-year creative hiatus was concluded with Dialoghi (1965). The piece, written for bassoon and piano, contains highly progressive solutions in its musical material: even in its early form it features his distinctively treated dodecaphony, pointillistic voicing, and linear polyphony, alongside aleatoric methods, clusters, and free notation, mainly learned from Penderecki.[10] However, the work still bears the characteristic features of Kocsár’s oeuvre, namely its song-like quality and striving for beautiful sonority. The closing section of the composition, with its tone reminiscent of Hungarian folk laments, is a hallmark of Lamenti (1965–1967), written for soprano and piano to the poems of García Lorca. It was through this cycle that Kocsár attracted the attention of the international audience at the 1968 Warsaw Festival of the Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik.[11]
By 1964, Kocsár had composed 19 choral works on a wide variety of texts; however, these pieces were primarily based on earlier models.[12] After the Lorca songs, another significant step followed in Kocsár’s compositional development: he turned once again to choral music in order to combine domestic traditions with newly acquired compositional techniques and his freshly discovered expressive voice.[13] The first result of this fusion was the highly virtuosic, eight-movement choral suite for female voices, Évszakok zenéje (Music of the Seasons) (1967), which, following the choral works of Kodály and Bartók, represents the first fundamentally new, fresh, and modern Hungarian choral work.[14] As instrumental as Kocsár's chamber works are – for the composer never favoured experiments that imposed effects foreign to the instruments [15] – his major choral works are equally demanding on the voice. For this reason, for several years he was unable to find an ensemble willing to perform Music of the Seasons [16].
From the second half of the 1960s to the mid-1970s, Kocsár composed his instrumental works primarily for small ensembles consisting of only a few instruments. During this period, he discovered the cimbalom (a Hungarian hammered dulcimer), whose most characteristic use can be heard in Repliche No. 1 for flute and cimbalom (1971). In this work, his interest in improvisation is complemented by folk tradition, both in the choice of instruments and in the lament-like melodic lines.[17] The title refers to the piece’s dialogue-like, 'call-and-response' structure. Repliche effectively became a 'genre' within Kocsár’s compositional workshop, leading to subsequent works: Repliche No. 2 for horn and cimbalom (1976) and Repliche No. 3 for solo cimbalom (1981). In addition to the Repliche series, the cimbalom can also be heard in the accompanying ensemble of Kassák-dalok (Kassak Songs) composed in 1976.[18]
In addition to his interest in intervals and the exploration of new sounds, Kocsár was also concerned with the extent to which classical forms, even indirectly, remained valid in his time.[19] In his instrumental music written around the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, for example, he sought ways to incorporate improvisatory elements into traditional architectures. In Variazioni (1968) for wind quintet – considered a bearer of the typical Hungarian aspirations of the period – the musical material that can be regarded as the theme, arranged in a four-line folk-song structure of motifs, thematic heads, patterns of melodic movement, and harmonic turns, is elaborated into ten clearly distinguishable formal blocks; moreover, the appearance of the second theme evokes an allusion to sonata form.[20] In the Improvizációk (Improvisations) (1972) for piano, the series of variations is interrupted by improvisatory sections, while in the brass Sextett composed in the same year, fragments of the theme return ritornello-like between the fast sections.[21]
Among his choral works from this period, the pieces set to the poems of László Nagy (1971–1973) stand out.[22] It was the musicality of Nagy's poems, alongside their drama rooted in Hungarian folk tradition that particularly captivated Kocsár. In 1971, Tűz, te gyönyörű (Fire, You Beautiful One) and Liliomdal (Lily Song) were composed, followed in 1972 by Három női kar (Three Women’s Choruses). The 1973 choral work Tűzciterák (Fire Cithers) is one of his most important and popular pieces.[23] In this particular work, he elaborated a major-second–minor-third series – his experiment with a pentatonic model that, when extended, encompasses all twelve tones.[24] These works no longer impose the same level of difficulty on performers as Évszakok zenéje (Music of the Seasons) did. This is because, during this period – due to his teaching at a music school – Kocsár studied Palestrina-style counterpoint in depth, which encouraged the development of his own 'singable style'.[25]
The reduced demands placed on performers also opened the way for Kocsár to turn to children’s choirs. From 1974 onward, he produced a series of works for the youngest singers: Gyermekkarok I–III (Children’s Choruses I–III) (1974) on poems by Csanádi (followed by volume IV in 1984), Csili-csali nóták (Tweedle-Dee Songs, 1977) on poems by Sándor Weöres, and the English-language choruses Cat and Dog and Knick Knacks, composed in 1978 on a commission from the International Kodály Society.
Two decades after his graduation works, in the second half of the 1970s, Kocsár’s attention once again turned toward orchestral sonorities. (Although he himself rejected the idea, it is possible that this shift was influenced by his encounter with Mahler’s art.)[26] Within ten years, he composed three large-scale orchestral works: Varianti (for the Debrecen MÁV Philharmonic Orchestra, 1976), Metamorphoses (for the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra, 1979), and Formazioni (for the Szombathely Symphony Orchestra, 1986). During this period, he also composed Sequenze (for string orchestra, commissioned by the Veszprém Chamber Orchestra Festival, 1980). A common feature of these works is that they are all composed of short movements. Their large-scale form unfolds through a balance of contrasts, thematic relationships, variation, transformation, metamorphosis, and an ever-present chamber-music mode of thinking.[27] Az éjszaka képei (Images of the Night) – based on the poem of the same title by Ferenc Juhász – is Kocsár's only cantata with orchestral accompaniment to date, composed in 1988 on a commission from the Europa Cantat festival in Pécs.[28]
The characteristic genre of the late 1970s and early 1980s is the concerto. All of Kocsár’s compositions in this genre were composed for fellow musicians who were dear to him. In 1976 he composed Öt tétel klarinétra, csembalóra és vonószenekarra (Five Movements for Clarinet, Harpsichord, and String Orchestra) for Béla Kovács; in 1978 he completed the Capricorn Concerto for flute and chamber ensemble for István Matuz. In 1982, under the title Episodi, he wrote a concerto-like work for oboe and string orchestra for Péter Pongrácz, while the Elégia (Elegy, 1985) for bassoon and string orchestra was dedicated to the bassoonist József Vajda. In memory of Zoltán Huszárik – with whom he collaborated on the film entitled Csontváry – he also composed a concerto: Concerto – in memoriam Z. H. (for horn and chamber orchestra, dedicated to Ferenc Tarjáni, 1983). These concerto-like works are all based on the same fundamental idea: the contrast between the singing quality of the solo instrument and the coloristic richness of the accompanying ensemble. The pieces follow more closely the principles of 18th-century concertos than those of the 19th or 20th centuries: at times the solo instrument merely emerges slightly from the chamber texture, while at other times it takes on a more overtly soloistic role.[29]
Kocsár returned to chamber music in the second half of the 1980s, with his Wind Quintet No.3 in 1984 and Quintetto d'Ottoni for two trumpets, horns, trombone and tuba (1986) two years later. In 1983, he was commissioned by the Budapest International Viola Competition to write a solo viola work entitled Hét változat (Seven Variations).[30] It was also at this time that he began the cycle of Echoes, based on the resonance of voices, first for one horn (1984), then for two (1989), three (1997) and finally four (1998).
Among the important choral works of this period are Six Choruses (1981), set to poems by Carl Sandburg, and Csodafiú-szarvas (The Wonderboy-deer) (1979), written to a poem by László Nagy on the commission of the International Choir Competition in Debrecen. [31] Between 1985 and 1993, Kocsár composed several choral works based on the texts collected by Zsuzsanna Erdélyi. Although the anthology Hegyet hágék, lőtöt lépék (I Went Up and Down the Mountain) had already been published in 1976, the folk texts did not immediately capture Kocsár’s imagination; it took him several years to come to terms with the overflowing, prose-like language. [32] The choral works written on these texts – Mégis mondom, Damion! (Yet I Say, Damion!) (1985), Hegyet hágék, Hálog hasadj meg! (I Went Up the Mountain, Cataract, Burst!), Oh hajnal, hajnal (Oh Dawn, Dawn), Keresztvetés (The Sign of the Cross), and Szent Antal tüze (St. Anthony’s Fire) (1992–1993) – form a 'lofty chapter'[33] in his oeuvre, 'opening up new dimensions and new mysteries on the firmament of Hungarian choral art.'[34] These works also crystallized the mature style characteristic of Kocsár’s choral compositions from the 1990s onwards: concise, simplified Hungarian declamation; recitative-like openings; the use of modal scales, la-pentatony, mixtures, quartal chords and overtone chords – what came to be known as the 'Kocsár signiture.' [35]
From the 1990s onwards, Kocsár increasingly adopted a classicizing style: according to his own statement, by this time he had accepted himself and no longer sought to please anyone or align with any particular school.[36] Archaic forms – sonata form, rondo form – reappear in 'renewed' versions in his works, while his harmonies became clearer, 'simpler', and perhaps more 'accessible'. Early representative works of this style are the classical three-movement (fast–slow–fast) concertos: Csellóverseny (Cello Concerto) written for Csaba Onczay (1994; the slow movement is a homage to József Antall, who had passed away at the time of composition) [37], the violin concerto entitled Concerto da Camera written for Ferenc Szecsődi (1995), Concertino két fuvolára és vonószenekarra (Concertino for Two Flutes and String Orchestra) (1999) written for the couple Bea Berényi and Ákos Dartsay, and the viola concerto entitled Concerto lirico (2000), written on a commission from Belgium.
In the early 1990s, Kocsár once again produced a significant amount of chamber music: in addition to the aforementioned horn compositions, he further expanded the repertoire for brass instruments with Rapsodia (1990) composed for trombone, piano and percussion, Musica (1991) written for four trombones and four percussionists, and Suite (1996) for three trombones. Other chamber works from this period include Fantasia klarinétra és ütőhangszerekre (Fantasia for Clarinet and Percussion) (1991) and Hang-szín-játékok két fuvolára (Sound-Color Games for Two Flutes) (1993). He also composed for classical chamber instruments, the strings: in 1989, a solo cello work entitled Változatok (Variations) (revision in 2002), in 1993, a string trio, and in 1996 a Chaconne for two violins and a cello.
In 1992, after a hiatus of one and a half decades, Kocsár returned to song composition with the cycle A félelem felhői (Clouds of Fear) (1992) set to poems by Kassák. Soon, a whole series of songs followed: Dalok Kányádi Sándor verseire (Songs on Poems by Sándor Kányádi) (1994), Három dal Gyurkovics Tibor verseire (Three Songs on Poems by Tibor Gyurkovics) (1996), Öt virágének (Five Flower Songs) (1997), and Ölelj meg engem, Isten (Embrace Me, God) (1998). Kocsár also composed several choral works on Kányádi’s poems around this time: Téli alkony miniatűrjei (Miniatures of Winter Dusk) (1993), Öt bicinium (Five Bicinia) (1994), the children's cantata entitled Madáretető (Birdfeeder) (1995), the women's chorus Valaki jár a fák hegyén (Someone Walks on the Top of the Trees) (1995), and the cycle Könyörgés tavasszal (Prayer in Spring) (1999).
Around this time, Kocsár also began his collaboration with Dénes Szabó and his ensembles, the Pro Musica Girls’ Choir and the Cantemus Children’s Choir from Nyíregyháza, who performed and recorded a significant portion of his choral works to critical acclaim (including Missa in A, 1991).[38] The success of Kocsár’s choral compositions was such that fellow composer Sándor Szokolay called him 'the greatest, most successful and most popular living Hungarian choral composer.'[39]
With the change of the political system, the opportunity arose for Kocsár to compose sacred works. Up until then, apart from a few commissions written in English, he had composed exclusively to Hungarian texts, but from this period onward he increasingly turned to Latin. Among his earliest such compositions are Salve Regina (1995), followed soon by Ave Maria (1997), Cantate Domino (2000), the orchestral Magnificat (1996), and Jubilate Deo (1995) for double choir. Kocsár also composed Mass settings that, according to his vision, could even be used in liturgy: besides the a cappella (for women's choir, 1991) and Missa tertia (for mixed choir, 2002), he also wrote the organ-accompanied Missa secunda (for women’s or children’s choir, 1997), commissioned by the Tokyo Broadcasting Children's Choir. [40] It was Kocsár’s works set to Latin texts that brought him true international recognition. [41] From the second half of the 1990s, his compositions were performed regularly in Japan, and between 2000 and 2011 the Miklós Kocsár Competition was held biennially in Tokyo.[42] From the early 2000s, his works have also been frequently programmed in Western Europe.
After the turn of the millennium, Kocsár wrote a large number of choral works, primarily to sacred texts. As new developments in his oeuvre, compositions for boys' mixed choir appeared, such as Régi magyar diákdalok (Old Hungarian Student Songs) (2005), along with works for double unison choir with brass accompaniment, for example Laudate Dominum (2005), and two choral works set to poems written by László Nagy in 1956: Karácsony (Christmas) and Fekete glória (Black halo) (2005–2007). He also completed four additional song cycles, one of which was a revival of Dalok Csukás István verseire (Songs to Poems by István Csukás), originally composed in 1960.
In 1999, Kocsár composed a Concertino for two flutes and strings. In 2000, at the request of a Belgian commissioner, he wrote a viola concerto (Concerto lyrico). That same year also saw the creation of Laudatio Epis Copis Martini – a work for narrator, soloists, and small symphony orchestra depicting the life of Saint Martin. In 2007, he composed a Stabat Mater for soprano and baritone soloists, mixed choir, and symphony orchestra. Between 2015 and 2016, he composed Emlékképek a XX. század 50-es éveiből, vázlatok szimfonikus zenekarra (Memories from the '50s of the Twentieth Century, Sketches for Symphony Orchestra) in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence. The musical material of this work partly draws on melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements from 1950s compositions, and is supplemented with similar material. However, there are remarkably few instrumental pieces in Kocsár's oeuvre since 2000, of which Fantasia and Friss (Fresh) (2005–2008), composed for soprano saxophone and various accompanying instruments, and Tre pezzi per organo (2005), written in memory of Ferenc Farkas, seem to be significant. In 2012, he wrote a series of pieces at the request of his grandchildren: Apróságok – 28 rövid darab két fagottra (Titbits – 28 Short Pieces for Two Bassoons), 9 apró darab fagottra és zongorára (9 Short Pieces for Bassoon and Piano), pieces for wind quintet, and Tavaszköszöntő fanfár hat fagottra vagy harsonára (Spring Greeting Fanfare for Six Bassoons or Trombones).
[2016]
[1] Imre Földes: Harmincasok. Budapest: Zeneműkiadó,1969, p. 60.
[2] FV-NB: 'A Zeneakadémia aranydiplomásai válaszolnak – Rondó 2.' Fidelio, 30 September 2012 http://fidelio.hu/klasszikus/2012/09/30/a_zeneakademia_aranydiplomasai_valaszolnak_rondo_2/ (Last visited on 2 March 2016).
[3] Földes: Harmincasok, p. 64.
[4] Bálint András Varga: 3 kérdés, 82 zeneszerző. Budapest: Zeneműkiadó, 1986, p. 189.
[5] Földes: Harmincasok, p. 53.
[6] Varga: 3 kérdés, 82 zeneszerző, pp. 188–189. and Földes: Harmincasok, pp. 53–54.
[7] Máté Hollós: 'Művek bontakozóban. Kocsár Miklós múltba tekintése.' Muzsika 41/4 (April 1998), p. 43. and Márton Devich: 'A harsonától a kórusokig. A hetvenéves Kocsár Miklós portréja.' Muzsika 46/12 (December 2003), p. 11.
[8] Ibid. Although the String Quartet for String Orchestra, in a significantly revised version, was already performed in 1972 under the title Serenata per archi (1971).
[9] Varga: 3 kérdés, 82 zeneszerző, p. 193.
[10] Varga: 3 kérdés, 82 zeneszerző, p. 189. and Földes: Harmincasok, pp. 54-58.
[11] Rita Gerencsér: Kocsár Miklós. Budapest: Mágus, 2001. pp. 8-9.
[12] Péter Ordasi: Csodafiú-szarvas. Kocsár Miklós műve a néphagyomány és a huszadik századi líra keresztútján. In: Józsefné Dombi – Noémi Maczelka (eds.): Zene és művelődéstörténet. Szeged: SZTE JGYTFK, Department of Music, 2006. pp. 73–78. 74.
[13] Márton Devich: 'A harsonától a kórusokig. A hetvenéves Kocsár Miklós portréja.' For one of the earliest discussions of the tone thus found, see: László Somfai: 'Fiatal magyar zeneszerzők.' Hungarian Music 9/6 (1968), p. 170.
[14] Gerencsér: Kocsár, p. 10.
[15] Varga: 3 kérdés, 82 zeneszerző, p. 189.
[16] Márton Devich: 'A harsonától a kórusokig. A hetvenéves Kocsár Miklós portréja.' The work was finally performed by the Győr Girls' Choir conducted by Miklós Szabó in 1969.
[17] Kroó: A magyar zeneszerzés 30 éve, p. 187.
[18] Gerencsér: Kocsár, p. 12.
[19] Varga: 3 kérdés, 82 zeneszerző, p. 193.
[20] Kroó: A magyar zeneszerzés 30 éve, pp. 147–148.
[21] Gerencsér: Kocsár, p. 11.
[22] Kocsár – by his own admission – tended to 'get stuck' with a poet anyway, see Mihály Ittzés: 'Pódium-beszélgetés Kocsár Miklós zeneszerzővel.' Parlando 47/3 (March 2015). http://www.parlando.hu/2015/2015-3/Bardos_Kocsar_Ittzes.htm (Last visited on 2 March 2016).
[23] See Péter Ordasi: 'Bartók Béla stílusának elemei Kocsár Miklós kórusművében (a Tűzciterák [1973] című kórusmű alapján).' In Józsefné Dombi – Noémi Maczelka (eds.): Mozart-Liszt-Bartók. Studies. Szeged: SZTE JGYTFK, Departement of Music, 2007. pp. 125–140. and the same authors: 'Bartók stílusának elemei Kocsár Miklós kórusműveiben – Tűzciterák 1973.' Zeneszó 23/10 (October 2013), pp. 3–8.
[24] Varga: 3 kérdés, 82 zeneszerző, p. 191.
[25] Gerencsér: Kocsár, p.14.
[26] Varga: 3 kérdés, 82 zeneszerző, pp. 190–191.
[27] Gerencsér: Kocsár, p. 16.
[28] Attila Kovács – Mátyás Ivasivka: Kocsár Miklós. In Attila Kovács – Mátyás Ivasivka: Pécsi Concerto. Fejezetek Pécs zenetörténéből. Pécs, Alexandra, 2011, pp. 466–470.
[29] Gerencsér: Kocsár, 17.
[30] Katalin Fittler: 'Kocsár Miklós: Hét változat mélyhegedűre.' Parlando 26/11 (November 1984), pp. 29-30.
[31] Ordasi: Csodafiú-szarvas, p. 75.
[32] For background, see Márton Devich: 'A harsonától a kórusokig. A hetvenéves Kocsár Miklós portréja.'
[33] Gerencsér: Kocsár, p. 20.
[34] József Tóthpál: 'Születésnapi köszöntő.' Zeneszó 3/10 (December 1993), p. 3.
[35] Péter Ordasi: Csodafiú-szarvas. Kocsár Miklós kórusműve a hagyomány és a kortárs líra keresztútján. Dissertation, Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music (LFZE DISS 401). Budapest: [s. l.], 2005, pp. 25–49.
[36] Márton Devich: 'A harsonától a kórusokig. A hetvenéves Kocsár Miklós portréja.'
[37] Máté Hollós: 'Művek bontakozóban. Kocsár Miklós: Gordonkaverseny.' Muzsika 37/4 (April 1994), p. 37.
[38] See, for example, Katalin Fittler: 'Kocsár Miklós kórusművei CD-felvételen.' Zeneszó 7/9 (September 1997), p. 11., and the same author: 'Kocsár Miklós egyházi művei – CD-felvételen.' Zeneszó 9/7 (August 1999), p. 11.
[39] Sándor Szokolay: 'Elfogult hangú gondolatok – a 60 éves Kocsár Miklós kóruséletművéről.' Zeneszó 4/1 (January 1994), p. 9.
[40] Máté Hollós: 'Művek bontakozóban. Kocsár Miklós múltba tekintése.' Muzsika 41/4 (April 1998), p. 43.
[41] Máté Hollós: 'Művek bontakozóban. Kocsár Miklós új kórusai és orgonaműve.' Muzsika 49/1 (January 2006), p. 32.
[42] Ordasi: Csodafiú-szarvas. p. 74.