Competition or not?

This legendary performer and academic, Jenő Hubay’s student and Bartók’s chamber music partner, died in 1959, but his legacy still has a profound impact on the everyday life of the music university. Besides looking after his pedagogical heritage, the Liszt Academy also pays tribute to his memory with a contest whose essence – according to Eszter Perényi, professor emerita of the university – is by no means a competition.

In October the Liszt Academy again hosts the National Ede Zathureczky Violin Competition. What history lies behind this event?

The competition has quite a long history. The initiative came from Ede Zathureczky’s widow, who donated a Ruggieri violin and a Sartory bow to the Liszt Academy back in the 1980s. Every four years, the instrument and bow go to the violinist who graduated from the Liszt Academy and received the top grade from all the judges at his or her graduation concert. This is an internal competition. The National Ede Zathureczky Violin Competition, however, is something different: it was launched 20 years ago, in 1998, and takes place every five years. I am personally connected to Zathureczky – my father, professor at the Liszt Academy, was good friends with him, so much so that it was he who commissioned from the painter living next to us Zathureczky’s portrait that now hangs on the wall of the conference room, but I was also on good terms with Mrs Zathureczky – so it was quite natural that I would inherit the honour to preserve Zathureczky’s legacy from Dénes Kovács, who used to be the maestro’s student himself. Obviously, it was Zathureczky’s personality as an artist and his commitment to contemporary works that inspired us to determine that the competition repertoire should contain a contemporary piece alongside other slower and virtuoso compositions. This year, the competition takes place in the autumn break, and the award ceremony and gala will be held on 4 November.

Is Zathureczky’s legacy as an educator and musician still perceptible in the way Hungarian violinists play their instrument?

I am often asked this question abroad, too. Zathureczky was a student of Hubay, who was in turn a student of the great Hungarian-born violinist Joseph Joachim, friend of Brahms, so their performance style unites features of the German, French and Belgian schools in addition to Gypsy musical traditions. For them, it was always the beauty of the produced sound that mattered, and this should be rich and strong coupled with extraordinarily light bowing. All over the world, the hallmark of Hubay’s school of violin playing, with representatives like Stefi Geyer, Ferenc Vecsey and Jelly Arányi, was the sensitive, bright sound. This imaginative and personal performance style has been conserved not only in Zathureczky’s recordings but also in the way violin playing is taught: these characteristics can be seen in Dénes Kovács just as much as György Pauk. The growing number of international contests and their impact on musical careers, however, do not help retain local traditions. Unfortunately, at these competitions, stamina and flawless, perfect performance prevails over musical originality. The traditions of the Hungarian school of violin playing have not disappeared; however, these days they are almost inevitably pushed into the background. One must also remember that with just a few clicks of the computer mouse, any interpretation of a piece is accessible online: concert and CD recordings are available to anyone in seconds, and while this is wonderful on the one hand, it does pose the risk of imitation, resulting in strange, shallow and sterile music skills.

Can the National Zathureczky Violin Competition avoid these traps?

We hope so. This is a contest that doesn’t focus on appearance or formalities but purely on music. It has only one round, and there is no preliminary selection process. The applicants are put in four age groups from the youngest to graduating Liszt Academy students, and we try to encourage all candidates with various types of certificates of appreciation. There are about a hundred applicants on average, and judging from our experiences, everyone benefits from participating. The winners of the first Zathureczky competition were Ernő Kállai and Ádám Banda. The latter is a member of the academic staff at the Liszt Academy today. Péter Tornyai came second in 1998; he is the composer of the Ede Variations, which is the compulsory piece for the 2nd age group. Other increasingly important figures of the Hungarian music scene, like László G. Horváth and Bálint Kruppa, debuted in this contest as children. The repertoire is student-friendly, and the most important thing that matters is violin skills. I would much rather call it a gathering of talent than a competition. It is a marvellous experience to look at the violinists ranging from eight years old right up to the age of graduation.