József Soproni

Sopron, 4 October, 1930 – 24 April, 2021

His career, musician habitude, wide range of interest were basically determined by his birth in Sopron, and that he was raised at the Hungarian/Austrian region. The centuries of the historical and cultural past of Sopron and its musical life preserving valuable traditions were ideal ground for the versatile talent, moving towards the artistic profession. The young József Soproni was and active participant of the busy concert life, chamber and home music making, church music, choir activities as a pianist and organist; but the old walls of Sopron also inspired his interest for architecture and art history for a lifetime.

 

He was known as an exceptional organist and piano accompanist although his real dedication predestined him for composition therefore he pursued that major with the guidance of János Viski at the Academy of Music. His talent for pedagogy became apparent already at that time and he started his career as a teacher of the Béla Bartók Secondary School of Music in 1957. Later he continued his educational work at the Academy of Music as an appointed professor at a fairly young age of 44 years. He has been teaching at the institution up to this day. He taught composition primarily and almost all the theoretical subjects besides that – music theory, solfége, counterpoint, methodology of music theory, score-reading. He was the rector of the Academy between 1988 and 1994.

 

He belongs to the best teachers of the Academy of Music by his enormous knowledge of music history and music theory, great hearing and abilities as a musician as well as experience as a composer. His wide-range knowledge of styles, ability for transmission and pedagogical tolerance educated generations for the professional cultivation of music. His work as a rector was characterized by unmatched objectivity, clear situation awareness and definite resolution. At the time of his term the duration of training at the Teachers' Training Institutes was raised from three to four years; the postgraduate class singing teacher training – providing university degree - was started at that time. The church music division was re-established and the piano accompanist training was started. The jazz department received a college rank.

 

The composers, who are also teachers of their profession during their entire life, presumably compose differently than those colleagues who live exclusively for composition. The former – by the transmission of the profession manifesting in studies of style, as well - are faced the past of music history, and its inspiring power daily. This is certainly true in the case of József Soproni who absorbed samples of the great predecessors by his high-level intellect and consciousness. He was never detached from the European traditions; however, these traditions lived only through the filter of his sovereign creative personality in his compositions.

 

Soproni cultivates mainly the traditional genres of vocal and instrumental music, and faithful to certain genres but also renews his own former conceptions during his long career. The metamorphoses of the conception are well represented at his symphonies and string quartets from the literary motivation to the most subjective dedications. Compared to his earlier concertos and duo-sonatas, his piano sonatas (not fewer than thirteen in the last four years!) go on new, experimental directions; his sets of piano pieces (primarily the Jegyzetlapok, 1974-78) written partially with pedagogical aims belong to the best in the genre.

 

Soproni's life-long attraction to choral music, song literature, chamber music and church music roots in the old civil musical life of Sopron. It is exemplified by his mass compositions and other church works in Latin, at a growing volume in the last decade, besides his songs inspired by Radnóti, Weöres, Rilke and Verlaine, his movements of Musica da camera, being familiar with the soul of chamber music making. The large-scale Missa Scarbantiensis, premiered in the St Michael church in Sopron in 1995 is extraordinary among the former, amalgamating the past and the present.

 

The life achievement is great and growing continuously.

 

József Soproni is a member of the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts; among his awards are the Bartók Béla-Pásztory Ditta prize in 1987 and 2002, the Kossuth Prize in 1999, as well as the Artist of the Nation title in 2020.