Fragments

The project entitled Fragments is associated with four performing artists: Anasztázia Razvaljajeva (harp), Anna Rákóczy (flute), Boglárka Szűcs (viola), and Éva Bodrogi (voice). The first point of departure for their musical collaboration was the composition The Muse’s Monologue by Anna Virág Virág / Kinga Fancsali. The piece and the shared experience of playing together inspired the musicians to expand the narrow repertoire available for this rare quartet formation with additional works. Thus, in 2023 they added compositions by three further composers—Máté Balogh, Marcell Dargay, and Péter Tornyai—to their program. These works were written especially for them and were all connected in some way to Orpheus / the muse-inspired singer-songwriter. The composers drew inspiration from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry cycle Sonnets to Orpheus.

The project Orpheus in the World, which was presented with great success at FUGA and the Ördögkatlan Festival, was further enriched in the autumn of 2024 at the House of Music Hungary through the collaboration of actor József Gyabronka and director Rebeka Csehi.

The current premiere bears the title Fragments and is a continuation of the Orpheus project. Once again, the performers “carry forward” one work from the previous program—a fragment of the earlier project. The connection between the earlier piece and the new ones—continuing the established tradition of structuring the series—once again lies in the text: while Péter Tornyai composed his work to the fragmented lines of Rilke’s Orpheus sonnets, the newly commissioned composers (Márton Levente Horváth and Bálint Bolcsó) use as their source material the poems entitled Fragments by Attila József, born 120 years ago. The concert will also feature Fragments, a chamber work by the twentieth-century classical composer András Szőllősy.

The performers invited Ernő Rubik—known both as a composer and as a curator of improvisational concerts—to create, as part of the project, a site-specific texture containing improvisational elements, in which audience interaction also becomes important. Thus, the second half of the concert is characterized by so-called open-form composition, consisting partly of the presented works and partly of impulses generated on site, with the participation of the four musician-performers, contemporary dancers, Bálint Bolcsó’s live electronics, and the audience.

The performance will take place in the vast spaces of the Godot Institute of Contemporary Art. The exhibition venue, housed in a former factory building, readily welcomes projects from other artistic fields. Although it forgoes the conventional comfort of a concert hall, it promises an inspiring environment, new sonic possibilities, and a fresh approach for listeners and performers alike.

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With the friendly support of Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

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