Prof. Lóránt Péteri (Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest), Social and Institutional Aspects of Composition in State Socialist Hungary – The Case of György Kurtág
23 września 2025 (wtorek), godz. 11:00, IS PAN, ul. Długa 26, Sala im. Sobieskich
Based on archival sources, the lecture focuses on the structure and volume of income earned by the composers of ‘classical music’ and also on the institutional infrastructure of their professional activities under state socialism. In doing so, I present some data and contexts specific to György Kurtág. I concentrate on the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, so that I can compare the characteristics of the Stalinist (1948–1956) and post-Stalinist (1956–1989) regimes, and point out continuities and discontinuities. The lecture reveals hitherto unexplored aspects of Kurtág’s involvement in the anti-Stalinist revolution of 1956. I also explore Kurtág’s position within, and his changing connection to a pre-eminent institution of the elite of Hungarian musical life. The founding of the Soviet-fashion Association of Hungarian Musicians in 1949 was one of the key moments in the Stalinist transformation of musical life. However, in the period between spring 1956 and January 1957, a liminal situation had developed, during which the Stalinist structure of the Association’s mode of operation had disintegrated but the political authorities did not yet built a new, post-Stalinist system. The lecture analyses this era of transition and the subsequent consolidation of a new modus operandi beginning in the late 1950s.
Lóránt Péteri is University Professor, Head of the Musicology Department, and Head of the Central European Music Research Group at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music (State University), Budapest. He received his PhD degree from the University of Bristol, UK, in 2008, and his habilitation from the Liszt Academy, in 2015. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Gustav Mahler Research Centre, Toblach (Italy). His research areas embraces the music of Gustav Mahler and the music culture of 20th-century Hungary, with special regard to the connections between music and politics. He was one of the co-organizers of the international conferences The Compositional Reception of Gustav Mahler (Toblach, 2022), and Rethinking Central European Music (Budapest, 2023). He is the author of two books, numerous book chapters and journal articles, and also co-editor of three edited volumes and a special issue.
Photograph credit: Photo: Hungarian News Agency, https://uni.lisztacademy.hu/musicology-teaching-staff/dr-peteri-lorant-…