There are few conductors in Hungary who have not, at some point in their careers, been connected with Professor István Párkai. As a teacher, author of university textbooks, and chairman of examination concert juries, every conductor in Hungary encounters him sooner or later. He belongs to that rare group of musical educators who are universally admired and respected by their students – not only by aspiring musicians but also by accomplished artists and recognised professionals who seek his advice on stylistic, manual, or practical issues of conducting.
The main stage of his life has always been the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, whose legendary building on Liszt Ferenc Square he once described as follows:
“I have been coming here since 1938… almost every day. I believe no one knows the Academy better than I do. One of my oldest memories is that we spent the air raids in the basement, because it’s a very strong building, both below and above. I know this because when the attic was converted, the architects were fascinated by it and said they had never seen such a vast attic space.”[1]
He was a student at the Academy’s training school, where he studied for ten years under Béla Ambrózy. He obtained his piano teaching diploma in 1953, with Miklósné Máthé as his practice supervisor. Among his professors at the Academy, he remembered László Somogyi, Leó Weiner, and András Mihály most fondly, acknowledging them as his greatest mentors.
From 1950 to 1955 he studied conducting at the Academy, graduating as a pupil of László Somogyi. This was the period when large numbers of students with specialised secondary qualifications were admitted to the institution. Three young musicians, including István Párkai, were invited to teach separate choral conducting groups. The department was divided between Zoltán Vásárhelyi and József Gát; Párkai first worked under Gát, and after the departments merged, he became Vásárhelyi’s assistant. He also worked for a year as a répétiteur in the vocal department. Later he became an assistant professor, associate professor, and finally full professor in the choral conducting department.
At the time, he sang in several choirs, most notably the Budapest Choir conducted by Miklós Forrai, where he had the opportunity to gain a deep knowledge of the oratorio repertoire.
From 1981 for fifteen years, he served as head of the Department of Choral Conducting – Secondary School Music Teaching and Choral Conducting. He was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus. The department’s aim was to train versatile musicians, and countless outstanding professionals emerged under his guidance – not only choral conductors but also teachers and other musical experts, including Mihály Ittzés, László Tardy, and Péter Erdei.
He regards conducting primarily as an intellectual activity and teaches it always in a way tailored to the individual. István Párkai has always believed that the goal is to achieve the most complete and best possible performance of the given work – but that there are many different paths to that end. The ideal is to find the approach best suited to the particular conductor.
For thirty years, he led the choral conducting courses of the Népművelési Intézet (Hungarian Institute for Culture and Art). This national initiative also produced numerous excellent conductors who later became leading figures in the field, such as Aurél Tillai, László Dobos, and Tamás Lakner.
In the 1960s and 1970s he also conducted an amateur ensemble – the Pedagogical Choir and Orchestra – performing, among many other works, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Gluck’s Alcestis in concert form with amateur participants.
From 1963 to 1993 he directed the Liszt Ferenc Chamber Choir, which he had founded himself. The ensemble’s mission was to perform unknown early and contemporary works. “This encompassed a great many things. At the time, I travelled a lot and brought back one or two scores from each trip, which expanded our repertoire. Later, I even wrote to some composers asking them to write something for us. For example, we sang László Sáry’s three-movement cycle, which has rarely been performed since; we also sang László Dubrovay’s very difficult piece Fears of Death, whose exciting fugue theme those who took part still remember. We learned it through an enormous amount of work. Fortunately, at that time we could occasionally obtain enough funding to retreat somewhere outside Budapest – perhaps to a mountain lodge – during the Christmas or Easter holidays and rehearse extensively. That’s how we learned Olivier Messiaen’s Cinq rechants, which still exists as a good recording; under other circumstances we could never have learned it, it’s so difficult with its twelve voices,” he recalled.[2]
In addition to numerous concerts and festivals in Hungary, the choir also performed in several European countries and in the United States, made many radio, television, and record recordings, and won international prizes in Spittal, Arezzo, Middlesbrough, and at the BBC Choral Competition.
The members of the choir were mostly current or former students of the Liszt Academy. They introduced many large-scale works and cycles by major twentieth-century composers to Hungarian audiences for the first time. Their repertoire included Hindemith’s Mass, Messiaen’s Cinq rechants, Poulenc’s Figure humaine and Un soir de neige, Eben’s Love and Death and Pragensia, Frank Martin’s Le vin herbé, Britten’s Sacred and Profane, and Ligeti’s Lux aeterna.
Párkai did an exceptional amount to ensure that works by the emerging generation of Hungarian composers – among them László Dubrovay, Miklós Kocsár, György Orbán, László Sáry, Miklós Csemiczky, and János Vajda – would be performed. His chamber choir’s regular repertoire also included choral works by Ferenc Liszt, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, László Lajtha, as well as Hungarian composers from Romania such as Tibor Oláh and Csaba Szabó. Great masters of Renaissance and Baroque choral music (Josquin, Palestrina, Lassus, Monteverdi, Carissimi, Schütz, and J. S. Bach) were featured prominently, along with rarities from Hungarian music history. The ensemble was also frequently invited to take part in performances with orchestra, often collaborating with the Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra in concerts and recordings.
In choral conducting training, Párkai considered instrumental practice essential. His long experience proved that solid instrumental skills are the foundation of an effective conductor’s attitude. His own career stands as an example of this – even in recent years he appeared in concerts as a piano accompanist.
His performance career was marked by a love of challenges. He had no favourite composer or work.
Likewise, he never found it foreign to conduct ensembles composed of non-professionals. Recently he gave a successful concert with the amateur choir of the Franciscan Church in Pasarét, Budapest. His high level of professional expertise is matched by a human depth that enables him to communicate effortlessly even with singers who are not professionally trained musicians.
He authored the book A kórusvezénylés alapjai (The Fundamentals of Choral Conducting), published in several editions. He also wrote the chapter “Conducting, Choral Teaching, Interpretation” in the college textbook Karvezetés (Choral Conducting), and contributed to a book on the performance of Bartók’s unison choruses. He was one of the editors of the collections Zengő csudaerdő (Resounding Wonder-Forest) and Virág és pillangó (Flower and Butterfly), both anthologies of twentieth-century Hungarian choral works, and co-editor of the choral anthology A magyar kórusmuzsika évszázadai (Centuries of Hungarian Choral Music).
He regularly teaches at conducting courses and masterclasses both in Hungary and abroad, serves as a jury member at choral competitions, and is a speaker at academic conferences. István Párkai has made significant contributions not only to the training of professional choral conductors but also to the world of amateur choirs. He is the Honorary President of the Association of Hungarian Choirs, Orchestras and Folk Ensembles (KÓTA) and a member of its Artistic Committee. In this capacity, he frequently participates in choir evaluations and festivals as chairman of the professional jury. He considers it essential to ensure the continued flourishing of Singing Hungary (Éneklő Magyarország), which, in his view, depends equally on the precision of the conductor and solid musicianship. His work is recognized not only in Hungary but also widely abroad.
In addition to his own ensemble, the Liszt Ferenc Chamber Choir, he has made recordings with the Honvéd Male Choir and the Kodály Choir of Debrecen. He was responsible for introducing many twentieth-century composers’ works to Hungarian audiences for the first time.
For his outstanding achievements and his contributions as a choir conductor and educator, he has received numerous artistic and state honours: the Liszt Prize (1978), the Bartók–Pásztory Prize (1997), the Officer’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit (1998), the title of Érdemes Művész (Artist of Merit, 2001), the KÓTA Prize (2004), and the Kossuth Prize (2007). In 2014 he was awarded the title Artist of the Nation (A Nemzet Művésze).
István Párkai has spent almost his entire life within a single institution – the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. It was there that he began his formal musical studies, and he continues to teach there today as Professor Emeritus, to the great delight of his students.
His ars poetica as a teacher is perhaps best understood from the following interview excerpt:
“F. A.: Professor, you have taught almost everyone who today stands at the forefront of Hungarian choral conducting. How does that make you feel?
I have often spoken about this, and it has often been censored as well. I usually say: a teacher can be satisfied if, out of ten students, he feels it was truly worthwhile with two of them. It’s not a very sympathetic ratio, but I stand by it. I’m glad when I see that there are those who still think – not only in the present but also with an eye to the future. […] New people keep coming, and you can never teach the same way twice. You can’t step into the same river twice!
F. A.: And did you have those two good students out of ten?
I never counted, but I have the feeling I did!”[3]
[2016]
[1] Fehér Anikó Fehér, Muzsika a katedrán, Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music (LFZE), Budapest, 2011, 175.
[2] Fehér Anikó Muzsika a katedrán, LFZE, Budapest, 2011, 182.
[3] Fehér Anikó Fehér, Muzsika a katedrán, LFZE, Budapest, 2011, 183.