Hungarian composer and conductor Péter Eötvös died on Sunday in Budapest at the age of 80 “following a long illness”, reported the Hungarian agency MTI early Sunday afternoon, citing his family. His country had just awarded him its highest distinction a few days ago, the Grand Prix Kossuth, for his body of work of “capital importance”.
The commemorations of Péter Eötvös’ 80th birthday really did not go as planned. The composer born on January 2, 1944 in the town, now Romanian, of Odorheiu Secuiesc in Transylvania was to be celebrated in particular in Paris, capital of a country which appreciated him so much and gave him so much, a country which saw birth of his most emblematic work, the opera Three sisters according to Chekhov in March 1998 at the Lyon Opera under the direction of Kent Nagano. But, in January 2024, Eötvös had already indicated that he would not be able to go to Paris and even less conduct his music.
Stockhausen and Boulez
If the composer followed the royal path of the best aspiring Hungarian composers, being admitted at the age of 14 to Zoltan Kodaly’s class at the Liszt Music Academy in Budapest, it was abroad, in Cologne, in Germany, where, thanks to a scholarship, he learned conducting (1964-1966) and found his calling.
In Cologne, the young conductor and composer attracted in particular by cosmic things (his opus 1, inspired by Yuri Gagarin is a piano piece entitled Cosmos) comes into contact with a very different world. He met Karlheinz Stockhausen, who led him to collaborate with him as a pianist and percussionist. From 1971 to 1979 he worked at the WDR electronic music studio in Cologne as a sound engineer. He directs the creation of the opera Donnerstag aus Licht by Stockhausen at La Scala in 1981 and its revival at Covent Garden. In 1979, Pierre Boulez attracted him to the Ensemble intercontemporain which he founded. From 1979 to 1991, Peter Eötvös was the first musical director of this ensemble.
On a creative level, Péter Eötvös skilfully moves away from research and pure electronics and is very interested in opera and chamber opera.
Original spirit
It is always dangerous to reduce a creator to something, but the search for the potential dramatic power of a vocal work in a contemporary creative universe is a quest that sums up Péter Eötvös well. And it was Kent Nagano and Jean Pierre Brossmann who, at the Lyon Opera, offered him the spark plug. With Three sisters according to Chekhov, in 1998, Eötvös acquired international notoriety and recognition. The work is original in several respects. One of the unexpected ideas is that the roles are all sung by men, including the four principal (female) roles, given to countertenors. Among other important lyrical creations, Eötvös will compose The balcony (after Jean Genet), in 2002, and Angels in America (after Tony Kushner), in 2004.
The idea “Péter Eötvös, opera composer” is not the result of chance, since his thirteenth opera (the first in Hungarian), Valuska, premiered on December 2, 2023 in Budapest. Eötvös nevertheless composed in all genres, notably the concerto, as the spectacular Speaking Drums presented at the Orchester Métropolitain under the direction of Elim Chan last November and which delighted the spectators at the Maison symphonique. Le Nem also played his compositions for ensemble. Kent Nagano invited his friend Eötvös to come and conduct the OSM in 2006.
As Pierre Gervasoni magnificently summarized in The world : “As far from the provocative postures of György Ligeti as from the symbolic laconicism of György Kurtag, whose Hungarian origin is less perceptible than his own (marked by folk music), Peter Eötvös stands out from all his contemporaries because he says conceive of music in terms of theater: “I think of situations for which I am looking for a soundscape”.”
It is his imagination which, joining that of the listener, which will earn him a place in posterity.