Judit Várbiró
Introduction
Judit Várbíró’s musical trajectory is exceptional, value-creating, and unique in its breadth. She made it her mission to present and mediate music as an art that shapes the human being, through educational genres she herself devised, brought into being, and brought to the public. Thanks to good fortune – and to the delight of those seeking musical cultivation – she was able to realise her ideas as a member of staff at Hungarian Television, the medium capable of reaching the broadest audiences of listeners and viewers within the broadcasting framework. As an editor – and in a range of other roles – she consistently recognised which kinds of programming, across periods, works, and genres, could bring the diversity of musical literature and musical life to the screen. With sure judgement, she selected those artists whose playing needed to be preserved, and she also identified those musicians who were not only fine performers but could articulate, in words, the meaning and essence of music. Finally – and by no means least – she understood which great performers and composers, whether still among us or living on through their art, called for portrait films and for their oeuvres to be explored and presented to the widest public. Várbíró’s programmes – approximately 1,500 in number – were not only relevant at the time of their making; through their preservation in the archives, they safeguard almost forty years of Hungarian musical culture for posterity.
Musical studies
Two prestigious educational institutions – the Kosciuszko Tádé Street primary school and the neighbouring Szilágyi Erzsébet Grammar School – provided the setting for Judit Várbíró’s musical path. One might speak of a genius loci, for within the walls of these two schools, high-quality musical education was offered, and she encountered experiences that shaped, for life, her relationship with the world around her.
She began studying piano at seven under Lili Váczi and Anna Hajdú. Her music history teacher was the immensely learned Kornél Bárdos, and in the school choir she discovered a lifelong love of singing. As she later put it: “I found myself drawn into this duality – into the spell of the piano and of singing.” During her grammar-school years, singing, in fact, took centre stage: as a member of the Szilágyi Erzsébet women’s choir, directed by Mária Mohayné Katanics, she gained incomparable experience in choral singing and became acquainted with masterpieces of Hungarian choral literature, including works by contemporary composers.
She was also active in chamber singing. Together with two fellow students, Adrienne Csengery and Andrea Zsadon, she founded the Szilágyi Trio, which won the Hungarian Television’s ‘Ki mit tud’ talent competition in 1963. Alongside madrigals, their programme included unison choruses by Kodály and Bartók – the latter among the most exacting chamber-vocal tasks, as the alternation of consonances and dissonances demands absolute precision and purity of intonation.
A quotation from her biography reads: “We presented Kodály’s 33 Tricinium to texts by Melinda Kistétényi in the personal presence of Professor Kodály.”
She continued her studies at the Zeneakadémia (Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music) on the Secondary-School Teacher Training and Choral Conducting course, under Zoltán Vásárhelyi, István Párkai and Erzsébet Szőnyi. Alongside learning the craft of conducting, singing again became central. She joined the Liszt Ferenc Chamber Choir, led by István Párkai – one of the most professional ensembles in the country, and perhaps in Europe, especially in respect of premières of contemporary works. Párkai tirelessly sought out works by contemporary composers abroad, and numerous Hungarian premières are associated with the choir. One curiosity: this ensemble gave the first Hungarian performance of Hindemith’s a cappella Mass, originally composed for a Swiss choir of singers with absolute pitch. The preparation took half a year, but the successes of performances at home and abroad compensated the choir members for everything.
In parallel, as a member of the Budapest Madrigal Choir, she participated for twenty-five years in concerts at home and abroad, as well as in radio and recording sessions – not only as a singer but also as a coach and a harpsichord continuo player.
Interestingly, it was singing – and friendships with voice students at the Academy – that led Judit Várbíró back to the piano: as a much sought-after accompanist, she worked regularly with future opera singers. For nearly fifteen years, she taught as a vocal coach at the Academy’s Kertész Street practice music school, in the singing classes of Zsuzsa Forrai and László Polgár; she also drew on her expertise in the Academy’s classes with the celebrated tenor József Réti, as a respected chamber-music partner.
Hungarian Television
As a newly qualified graduate, she began working at Hungarian Television as a music editor. At the invitation of the editor-in-chief, György Czigány, she then continued her nearly four-decade career in various leadership roles: from 1986, head of the music department; from 1993, head of the editorial office; and from 2004 to 2007, senior associate at the Cultural Directorate.
Várbíró’s multi-faceted musicianship, her knowledge of music history, and her determination laid the foundations for her irreplaceable work at Hungarian Television. Over almost forty years, the richest part of her oeuvre took shape there, in both quality and quantity. In every programme, she left a distinctive signature, whether the subject was a performer’s career, a composer’s oeuvre, a documentary film, a music competition, a television series devoted to musical education, or reportage on the country’s most significant events and festivals.
She demonstrated her editorial versatility and experience across multiple genres. Yet what especially commands respect is her inventiveness: her ability to recognise what audiences – viewers and listeners – genuinely needed. Beyond conceiving and discovering new programme formats, she secured approval from the television’s artistic leadership – her persuasive arguments most often found their mark – thereby ensuring the financial basis for the projects. She wrote scripts, organised the participants (soloists, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestras), and, once contracts were in place, oversaw the recordings and post-production under her personal, content-driven professional supervision.
She recalled the early years as follows: “We learned television-making on the job – there had been no professional training before, and the first generation came here from the Academy of Music and the Radio.”
“I had to work out for myself which programmes best serve musical education and how one can make others love music. György Czigány supported me in this work as well – he had previously gained extraordinary experience at Bartók Radio.”
“Musical education quickly became part of my life, and in the most varied ways I tried to win the public over to art.”
Her programmes were made in many different formats, yet – alongside this generic diversity – essentially every type served the cause of musical education through television as a mediating medium, in the most effective way. In this sense, Judit Várbíró can rightly be regarded as a leading figure in musical education.
Two series merit particular emphasis: each featured a celebrated conductor speaking about music, with live participation from a chamber or symphony orchestra. Várbíró’s ability to recognise who possessed not only the knowledge but also the verbal skill to make the music more compelling – and to convince the chosen individual of the programme’s importance – was evident first in her invitation to András Mihály, who appeared in the series ‘TV Zenei Klubja’, and second in Tamás Vásáry’s ten-part lecture series ‘Zenén túl’. Both musicians’ verbal delivery was inspiring and captivating. While András Mihály directed attention to the inner relationships within music, Tamás Vásáry revealed intimate details of great composers’ lives – details not found in lexicons, yet characteristic and decisive for their personalities, and with which he could personally identify. He felt a particular spiritual affinity with Liszt. His speaking style was so vivid and engaging, and he disclosed so many unknown personal details about Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Kodály, and many other composers, that music lovers attended the talk-concerts at the Academy almost as a pilgrimage.
“… I confess that without a true personality, there is no success. The ability to communicate is a matter of survival in our profession.” (J. V.)
For five years, she edited the concert series “Zene-óra Óbudán”, in which excellent chamber works were performed in live broadcasts by distinguished artists. “In many, many broadcasts we welcomed the finest artists of Hungarian musical life on Saturday evenings, so that they could speak of their successes, their credo and their plans with János Sebestyén or Attila Némethy – and make music, as soloists or together with artist friends.”
The venue, Óbudai Társaskör (Óbuda Community Circle), under the professional leadership of Judit Merényi, not only hosted the series but also enhanced its prestige and provided a home and rehearsal space for the Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra and the Budapesti Vonósok (Budapest Strings).
Looking back over nearly four decades, the number of portrait films of musicians produced in Judit Várbíró’s workshop is remarkable. The finest figures from different generations of a great era offered portraits of themselves and their creative and performing habits. Among composers, portraits of Zoltán Kodály, Ferenc Farkas, Emil Petrovics, Sándor Szokolay, József Soproni, Miklós Kocsár, and György Kurtág are particularly notable; among conductors, Lajos Rajter, Ervin Lukács, György Lehel, Yuri Simonov, and Georg Solti; and among performers, Dezső Ránki, László Polgár, Jenő Jandó, András Molnár, and Tamás Vásáry. In these portrait films, Várbíró said: “In truth, this was always my favourite genre. Its intimacy, the psychological approach – a non-violent insight into each artist’s inner world and secrets – interested me greatly even during my Academy years: working out how this inner process functions when a creator, or a performer who creates anew, summons thoughts and feelings that lie in the subconscious.”
She created posthumous portraits of two musicians who mattered greatly to her: the Cistercian monk and folk-music researcher Benjamin Rajeczky, and the emblematic tenor and Academy teacher József Réti – presenting their lives and work.
She also felt it was her vocation to document singular, outstanding musical events. In 1980, she made a documentary about the Bayreuth Festival; recorded the first Jerusalem Leonard Bernstein Conducting Competition; and produced films marking the 150th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society, the Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra’s 40th jubilee, and the Bartók String Quartet. Equally telling, the Hungarian National Commission for UNESCO asked her to produce a DVD edition entitled Kodály Zoltán zenepedagógiai öröksége (Zoltán Kodály’s Legacy in Music Education) on the so-called Kodály Method. This fact, more than anything, demonstrates that Judit Várbíró was recognised not only in Hungarian but also in international musical life.
Special mention must be made of the Hungarian Television Conducting Competition – one of the most successful and widely watched programmes – whose editing she took over in 1986. It returned to the screen every three years and ran for six editions in total. It became so popular that its viewing figures rivalled those of sporting events. Here, one could see how a well-chosen theme – the exciting world of music competitions – combined with excellent organisation can, almost imperceptibly, draw vast numbers into music’s orbit. Várbíró also introduced a new concept into the competition’s structure, both in the selection of works and in the composition of the jury. The competition’s clear and demanding criteria, together with the strict measures applied to technical tasks, refined it into a high-level professional contest. Through the programme’s values and in collaboration with specialists from the Interkoncert Music Competitions Office, it was admitted to the Geneva-based world federation of international music competitions.
The most significant work of her career is the three-part (three 1-hour episodes) film on Bartók, Gyökerek (Roots), which she conceived, edited, and wrote.
The film was directed by István Gaál, and its production took almost five years. There was never any question of depicting Bartók through an actor: the creators conceived it strictly as a documentary.
During a research period lasting more than a year, the film’s source material was compiled with the professional assistance of the music historian Sándor Kovács. Numerous Bartók letters, writings, textual documents and relics form the film’s narration, through which Bartók’s life story ‘speaks’.
“For weeks and months, we read and made notes – the floor of Gaál’s living room was covered with a thousand little slips – and in this way, we put together the script from Bartók quotations. Then came the visual realisation and the sequence of associated musical works. It took us 4.5 years. After the 2001 premiere, Hungaroton Classic released it; it became a gold record within a year.”
Among its many strengths, Gyökerek’s greatest merit lies in the way it evokes – through filmic means, selected newsreel material, letter excerpts, biographical facts, visual quotations from contemporary reports, mosaic-like fragments, and, not least, footage of poetic quality – Bartók’s life, portrait, and artistic and moral stature.
The creative pair mapped the locations where Bartók collected folk songs, became acquainted with villagers’ customs, and marvelled, for instance, at Transylvania’s incomparable natural riches. Portraits of inhabitants of villages beyond Hungary’s borders, details of their way of life, and the natural environment produced film images that could hardly be made today. “We visited small Hungarian, Slovak and Romanian villages which, when the film was being made, still preserved cultural conditions from a hundred years earlier.”
They were captured at the last moment. Alongside the personal aspects of Bartók’s life and the documentary material on the genesis of his works, the film also situates the events of world history current at the time, creating a contrast between the genius composer’s inner world and external, objective events. The film is a masterpiece of the Bartók portrait; it ought to form part of general cultural and musical education.
Fortunately, the larger part of Judit Várbíró’s television career coincided with a period when the recognition and importance of classical music were not yet in question, and when she could realise her ideas, even if only after struggle. Towards the end of her years at Hungarian Television, the situation changed profoundly, and in one interview she painted a rather bleak picture:
“The biggest problem is that no productions are being made. The generation that creates, performs, and makes music today – perhaps at the peak of its career – can scarcely appear on screen at all. … How will the current generation appear to posterity in twenty or fifty years if it does not reach the screen? If we do not archive it now? If the state and condition of today’s culture cannot be documented?”
“The aim should be precisely to educate music lovers, to create a demand among audiences for a high art form – instead of what is happening now, namely that we pander to low demands and serve only that.”
The recent period
After leaving Hungarian Television, Judit Várbíró was invited to Müpa Budapest, where she has since been working on music recordings and television programmes. For the M5 channel, under the series title Müpart Classic, nearly two hundred concerts have so far been recorded, supplemented by interviews, educational and linking commentary. Under her leadership and editorship, films were produced of performances from the Wagner Days, of Zoltán Kocsis’s Richard Strauss opera series, and of a semi-staged presentation of Bartók’s stage works – the last of these being Kocsis’s final public appearance.
From the 2000s onwards, alongside her television editorial work, she also successfully applied her professional expertise to books on music, including a period during which she edited music volumes for Holnap Könyvkiadó (Holnap Publishing House). As a result of her work as a reader, the reportage volume Madrigáltörténet (A History of the Madrigal), 1000 este a New York-i Metropolitanben (1,000 Evenings at the New York Metropolitan), the Hungarian edition of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s book on Brahms, and – also in Hungarian – Menuhin varázs (The Magic of Menuhin), a volume on Yehudi Menuhin’s life, were published. Particularly noteworthy is the series “Magyar zeneszerzés mesterei” (“Masters of Hungarian Composition”), including portrait volumes on András Szőllősy, Zsolt Durkó, György Kurtág, and József Soproni. Here, too, she encountered a situation familiar from television: she was able to convince decision-makers that, from the perspective of Hungarian musical culture, a valuable programme or a portrait volume on a contemporary composer is a more important consideration than the costs.
As a journalist and a member of the Magyar Újságíró Szövetség (Hungarian Journalists’ Association), she produced reports over many years with various artists for Operavilág and Opera magazines.
Alongside her editorial work at Müpa Budapest, Judit Várbíró plays an important role in Hungarian musical life as head of the Music Board of the National Cultural Fund of Hungary. She previously served on the board from 2007 to 2012; her election to this crucial post from 2019 onwards is recognition of her orientation within the musical landscape and of the immense experience gained over a career in which, out of personal interest as well as professional vocation, she consistently kept her eye on the most important musical developments. At the same time, the appointment carries great responsibility: under her leadership, collective decisions are made on which calls for applications should be issued, within which budgetary frameworks, and, above all, which criteria should dominate decision-making. Such decisions require complete objectivity: personal sympathy or antipathy must play no role. In a sense, it is here – in the National Cultural Fund’s grant-making activity – that the full spectrum of musical life appears: creative work (composer grants), the performing sphere with its generic and ensemble diversity, musical education, and preservation and archiving through sound recordings and music publications, scores and books.
Judit Várbíró received the Erkel Prize in 1998, the Gundel Art Prize in 2000, the Juhász Frigyes Prize for music journalism in 2004, and the Bartók Memorial Prize in 2006. Her programmes were awarded quality prizes by Hungarian Television on ten occasions. The musical community of the Hungarian Academy of Arts – and, more broadly, Hungary’s community of musicians – owes her gratitude for the life’s work she has produced to date: work that has enriched all of us with countless outstanding experiences, refining and ennobling our emotional world and our judgements of value.
[2024]