On October 5^th, the Embassy hosted a piano concert by the internationally renowned pianist couple, Mrs. Edit Klukon and Mr. Dezső Ránki.  

Edit Klukon and Dezső Ránki at the Hungarian Embassy

Mrs. Simonyi welcoming the artists and the audience

Mrs. Náda P. Simonyi welcomed the audience, the artists and contemporary composer Barnabás Dukay.

Klukon and Ránki playing Satie's Socrate

Dezső Ránki and Edit Klukon played two compositions for two pianos: Eric Satie’s „Socrate”, followed by Ferenc Liszt’s „Via Crucis” for piano duet. The latter evoked also the spirituality of the fallen Revolution of 1956.  

Edit Klukon and Dezső Ránki

Listening last evening consecutively to the two pieces (both resist all attempts to classify by genre) one might have thought they were by the same composer, and not without reason. The elderly Liszt and Satie came to similarly radical conclusions: both destroy the faith vested in the continuous development of music history and the listener’s expectations; both minimize their means and renounce the magic power of music, discarding elements whose only function is to give pleasure, and searching instead for an inner nuclear energy; both refrain from constructing “developmental” dramatic forms, in order to organize the musical process anew, from within; finally both reach back to the music of the Middle Ages, and present this temporal step backwards as an intellectual step forwards. Both pieces represent neat, simply sounding world of music, with simple and resolute means, resigning of all formality but   at the same time it is a grasping confession penetrating into the most inner parts of human soul.

Klukon and Ránki playing Via Crucis by Liszt

The audience received the outstanding performance with great ovation. The concert was followed by a reception where the audience had the chance to talk to the artists.

The Embassy hosted around 250 music-lovers at the concert

October 6, 2006

Hungarian Pianists Dezső Ránki and Edit Klukon Play Dukay at Katzen Center

On the next day, Mrs. Edit Klukon and Mr. Dezső Ránki gave a concert with works by Hungarian composer Barnabás Dukay at American University's Katzen Arts Center.

Ambassador Simonyi welcoming the audience at the Katzen Center

Dukay was born in Szőny, Hungary in 1950. He studied composition at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest under Rezső Sugár. From 1970 to 1990, he was a member of New Musical Studio, the Hungarian group of experimental musicians inspired by Bartók, Webern and  György Kurtág. His other main inspirations include Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage and Ligeti as well as  Ives and Ruggles. Since 1995. he has been a professor of music theory at Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. Holder of  numerous Hungarian and international awards, his works have been performed in Great Britain, Canada, Japan and many countries in Europe.

Klukon and Ránki playing works by Barnabás Dukay

 Dukay’s oeuvre is also very close to the meditative world of Jewish-Christian, Taoist, Confucian, Buddhist-Hindi as well American-Indian mysticism. After his creative period of  instrumental motets Mr. Dukay has recently composed a lot of four-handed works, for two pianos. An absolutely neat, simply sounding world of music, with simple and resolute means, resigning of all formality but   at the same time it is a grasping confession penetrating into the most inner parts of human soul. 

Composer Barnabás Dukay, Ambassador Simonyi, pianists Edit Klukon and Dezső Ránki

The composer’s motto for the pieces played at the Katzen Center: ”Like any other event in the world, the process of birth is preceded, or rather accompanied by a multitude of signs. These signs apprise us concisely and covertly of the development and possibilities of the life that will unfold.”

Founder of the Center, Dr. Cyrus Katzen congratulates the composer

Dr. Katzen, Mrs. Simonyi, composer Dukay, Ambassador Simonyi and Mrs. Barbara Vazsonyi