“Attila Reményi is a composer with an individual, personal voice, respectful of tradition, especially the musical tradition of our century. He is not necessarily a follower of the avant-garde aspirations, of experimentation with expressive means and techniques, which were so widespread in the 1980s. He is, however, well acquainted with them and uses them to enrich his individual language in a way that is appropriate to his message,” wrote the recently deceased music historian János Breuer about Attila Reményi.
Fate did not give Attila Reményi an easy career – though he himself would not have welcomed an easy run. He is a stable person with solid values. It is important to him that even the smallest success or result is backed up by performance. He is also brave. He is ready to face up to the difficulties that life throws at him and dares to take decisions that are met with incomprehension by a society that is essentially socialised for comfort and conformity. These choices then vindicate him. Above all, by not having to face crises that erode the integrity of the personality. He has no identity problems. He goes his own way. Even if he is walking this path alone. There is also a positive side to all this. The unconditional respect and appreciation of his students and teaching colleagues at the János Richter Music College in Győr, where he has been teaching music theory and composition for decades. Like his distinguished predecessors, he has successfully guided many of his students towards a career in composition. Some of them, including his son András, have gone on to have successful careers in light and some in serious music, but all have been basically successful. And Attila Reményi watches their flight from afar with a reserved affection. But when he is approached, he is also close by: always ready to offer his former students selfless advice when they stumble or face an unexpected obstacle. Just as his teachers – above all György Bácskai – who played a decisive role in his life, and whom he still remembers with gratitude and affection, did to him. His own development had a particular dynamic. Inexplicable, almost absurd difficulties at each beginning, and then later the solution arrived, almost “deus ex machina”. Right at the beginning, after his successful admission to music school, by accident – or perhaps on purpose, who knows now? – he was placed in a class one grade higher than the one to which he would have belonged according to his year. Immediately to the second year. He really struggled to find his place and had to deal with a lot of childhood frustrations. But then slowly the pieces fell into place, and from there he was able to successfully overcome further obstacles. So much so that he was accepted to the piano class at the Music Academy in Győr. Then came the second ordeal. He felt he couldn’t cope with harmonies studies. He was about to give up when the hitherto seemingly incoherent structure of music theory suddenly became clear, and today he introduces his students to the harmonic system of music in his own way, to make it easier for them. But we could go on. The same thing happened again at the Academy of Music when, after the first two years as a composition student, his main teacher Rezső Sugár retired and – then almost a man ready to start a family – had to adapt to the completely different compositional style and teaching personality of his new teacher Emil Petrovics. Before that, however, he had to choose between the creative challenges of the fine arts and music. The fact that Emil Petrovics, composer and teacher at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, visited Győr for a music competition, where he quickly recognised the talent of the teenage boy, certainly played a big role. It was the time of the Who Knows Who, and Emil Petrovics enjoyed widespread recognition and even – now unimaginable – popularity. It was perhaps thanks to his courage and unwavering faith that Attila Reményi always met the people who helped him to move forward at crucial moments. First and foremost, György Bácskai, a father-figure to him, a music history teacher at the János Richter Secondary School of Music in Győr, who guided him towards a profession, composition, that he had perhaps never thought of himself. And that vocation has rewarded him handsomely. Not only with prizes and distinctions for composition in numerous international competitions, but also with a veritable wealth of creative talent, which enables him to move with ease in any genre or style. Perhaps it is precisely this versatility that has enabled him to find his individual voice for so long. For decades he has searched, sometimes struggling, sometimes hopeful. But it has been there for a long time, most recently in Epilógus (Epilogue), written in 2015 in memory of Rezső Sugár, a former teacher of principal subjects. The work, after more than three decades, still bears witness to the realisation that behind the austere and restrained personality of his first academic composition teacher there were volcanoes. What the student at the time did not understand, the mature composer found enlightening. Rezső Sugár wrote no more works after his own Epilógus (Epilogue). Attila Reményi does not intend to end his creative career. His Epilógus (Epilogue) is first and foremost an homage, and secondly a summary and account of what he has learned, experienced and understood over the past three decades. It is no coincidence that his oeuvre includes several epilogues composed for different instrumental combinations. The first, Epilógus II (Epilogue II), for bass horn and piano, dates from the very beginning of his career, when he was still a college student in 1981. This was followed, in reverse order, two years later by Epilógus I (Epilogue I) for horn and piano. Both works are subtitled with a biblical text, the “Rorate coeli”, the opening line of the 4th Sunday of Advent introit, and Psalm 130, beginning “De profundis”. The epilogue is therefore more of a summary and account for Attila Reményi, as is evident from the Epilógus (Epilogue) composed for large orchestra in 1988. It is not an ending, but rather a farewell. The Bible is a constant source of inspiration in Attila Reményi’s oeuvre. Not only in the textual armatures – primarily in the form of psalms in verse – but also as an indirect reference in the instrumental compositions, indicating the deep, hidden connection that links the creative sphere to the inner self. Another mentor, who recognised his talent and selflessly supported his young colleague’s initial attempts to take off, was the composer Attila Bozay. Due to his premature death, he was not able to witness the culmination of Attila Reményi’s career, which was witnessed by the recently deceased György Bácskai.
To the outside observer, Attila Reményi’s style is inseparable from the essence of hailing from Győr. The characteristic feature of his hometown is that he successfully combined different stylistic layers and trends into a harmonious whole and continues to develop on their solid ground. It throws nothing away: it builds rather than destroys. Attila Reményi’s intellectual commitment to Győr is multifaceted: from external, physical and tangible inspiration to the analytical and synthesising reception and recreation of the deepest unconscious. The external, physical connections are directly recognisable in the works composed for the various apparatuses of the musical ensembles that make up the city’s diverse musical life, or in the works associated with specific Győr sites. One example that is obvious to anyone walking around the city is the emblematic chimes of Győr, composed by Attila Reményi. But the complex web of subconscious connections hidden deep in the creative soul is much more difficult to unravel. On the one hand, it presupposes knowledge of the city and its historical and cultural traditions, and on the other, it requires an understanding of the deeper context of the content of the oeuvre. Just as the memories of the historical past of his hometown, which spans almost three decades, are built upon each other, so the Renaissance harmonisation of French church choral art meets the pulsating rhythms of the wooden percussion instruments of remote African tribes in Attila Reményi’s workshop, mostly embedded in a classical formal framework. But there is one instrument, the harp, with which he has a special connection. Inspired by Zsuzsa Aba Nagy, a harpist living in Vienna, and later a teaching colleague, Adél Bélyei and her mother the Győr harp player Mária B. Gogolyák, he wrote several chamber harp pieces. His composition Miniatűrök hárfára (Miniatures for Harp), with which he won the Fukui Composers’ Competition in 1998 and thanks to which he was able to travel to Japan, was included in the compulsory material of the 3rd Szeged International Harp Competition in 2013.
A creative artist can be influenced in different ways by the intellectual influences to which he or she is rooted, and by the environment he or she may later choose to live in. For Attila Reményi, these two are identical. Built on Celtic and Roman foundations at the confluence of three rivers, the stylistic character of the centre of the city, once a civitas capitularis and civitas regalis, is essentially a blend of late Renaissance and southern German Baroque architecture, with Mediterranean elements. The majority of Attila Reményi’s works reflect a conscious adherence to the traditions and formal vocabulary of European music history, using acoustic instruments and modern instruments to explore this almost four-century-old intellectual heritage.