Béla Béla Kovács

 

Béla Kovács was György Balassa’s pupil at the Music Academy between 1951 and 1956. On gaining his diploma, he joined the Opera House orchestra and was its solo clarinettist till 1981. As a founding member of the Hungarian Wind Quintet (Magyar Fúvósötös), he worked from 1962 for a decade with Attila Lajos, Péter Pongrácz, Tibor Fülemile and Ferenc Tarjáni. As a member of the Budapest Chamber Ensemble from 1967 onwards, he participated in the premieres of a number of new Hungarian compositions. In 1975 he became a professor at the Music Academy (he is now an Emeritus Professor). In 1989 he was appointed professor of clarinet at the Graz Universitat für Musik. His pedagogical activities inspired him to publish textbooks facilitating the in-depth study of the instrument: Everyday Scale Exercises for Clarinet (1979), I Learn the Clarinet I-II (1983), Hommage for Clarinet (1994). He has also made many recordings.

 

Among his virtues as a performer those most emphasised are his almost perfect technique, superior sense of style and receptivity to musical humour. The critic of Muzsika wrote the following in connection with one of his concerts in 1982: "It is a great gain for our musical life that we can enjoy the wonderfully flexible, in all registers equally beautiful, thousand-coloured clarinet sound of Béla Kovács, this excellent musician, whose way of performing is sensitive to every tiny shade and is in every element musical." In 1967 he was awarded the Liszt Prize for his work as a performer, in 1972 he became Meritorious Artist, in 1978 Outstanding Artist, and in 1988 received the Kossuth Prize.

 

Béla Kovács has a thorough knowledge of the history of the instrument and of the connected repertoire. Owing to András Pernye, he got to know, for example, the original version of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, which – beyond the desire to play it as originally intended – also inspired him to gain a more profound knowledge of the style. Judit Péteri wrote the following about a performance of this work (with the Ferenc Liszt Chamber Orchestra): "(…) in his person Hungarian musical life has a clarinettist like, say, Miklós Perényi among the cellists. One could travel the world without finding one like him. He played this great work once again – who knows after how many previous times, and once again differently, in a new way – with simplicity and transcendent loftiness (…) He paid almost ceremonial attention to the formation of sounds and to the rounded finishes, his pianos, however soft, punched through the chamber orchestral texture; in his hands every register of the instrument overcame the terrible acoustics of the hall." He is familiar with the sound characters of the different styles and periods: tinkling and soft with the Viennese classics, harder with the Hungarian verbunkos, tones conjuring up colours and perfumes with Debussy… His Princess variations of The Wooden Prince, written for the clarinet, are a separate world.

 

His personality as a performer inspired several contemporary composers to write pieces for the clarinet. The greatest praise, however, was accorded to him for his Mozart interpretations. The following was written after a concert performance of the Clarinet Quintet: "As he began the theme of the slow movement of the Mozart work, as he sounded the folksy second trio of the minuet, or the slow variation of the finale, in their natural simplicity – that was unforgettable."