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Sándor Veress, Klavierwerke Jakub Tchorzewski, Piano |
| His playing is fascinating because of its logical consistency, expressivity and tonal subtleness, but predominantly thanks to a clear understanding of the particular idiomacy of Eastern-European folk music - these features predispose him to the performance of both classical répertoire and more modern compositions, including contemporary music. I can full-heartedly recommend pianist Jakub Tchorzewski to every concert organiser. |  |
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Claudio Veress, son of the composer
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| With the recording of Sandor Veress' piano works, the young Warsaw-born pianist Jakub Tchorzewski has succeeded in producing a fascinating performance, in which the tonal possibilities of the piano are thoroughly explored. | |||
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Michael Bühler, Swissdisc.ch
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| Highly pianistic demands are posed by the 1938 folklore-based collection of Twenty Piano Pieces, especially, however, the Sonata from 1929, performed by Jakub Tchorzewski. His is a rhythmically concise interpretation of the sonata, which was evidently composed in response to Bartok's Piano Sonata, published three years earlier. | |||
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Gerhard Dietel, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik,
April 2007
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| (...) these vigorous and rythmically alert performances by the Pole Jakub Tchorzewski are all the more welcome: they're given good sound, too. | |||
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Martin Anderson, International Piano, May/June
2007
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| The worthiness of Veress' piano pieces is proven by the distinguished and engagingly formative young Polish pianist. | |||
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Daniel Linhard, Schweizer Musikzeitung,
February 2008
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| Sándor Veress was one of the most important Hungarian composers of the 20th Century. Often, he is called "a missing link" between the two generations of Hungarian composers. He was taught by Béla Bartók and Zoltan Kodaly; after that, he was a professor at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where György Kurtag and György Ligeti were his students. | |||
| Sándor Veress was born on 1 February 1907 in Kolozsvár (nowadays Cluj). He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. He graduated with a composition major in 1929 and piano performance major in 1932. For political reasons, he immigrated to Switzerland in 1949. He settled in Bern, where he worked as professor of musicology at Bern University and as professor of composition at Bern Conservatory. He educated a whole generation of Swiss composers, including Heinz Holliger and Jürg Wyttenbach. In 1974, he became a member of the Swiss Association of Musicians (Schweizerischer Tonkünstlerverein). In 1991, he received Swiss citizenship. He died in 1992. | |||
| The complete biography of Sándor Veress can be found
at the official web-site: http://veress.net/
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My interest in Sándor Veress's piano music began
thanks to Prof. Michał Bristiger, who suggested that I perform Sonata
(1929) by Veress at the concert organized by the "De Musica" Association
in Warsaw, Poland, in March 2006. My wife, Giada Viviani, held a
short musicological presentation regarding this work. Sonata,
perceived by Veress himself as his Opus 1, refers to Sonata
by his master, Bartók. At the next concert, organized in May 2006,
I played other piano pieces: Sonatina (1932) and Six Csárdás
from Twenty Piano Pieces (1938). The cycle of Twenty Piano
Pieces was composed in 1938 and was never published as a whole;
however it was published separately as 3 independent cycles - A
Little Suite, Six Csárdás and Seven Hungarian Dances.
Two pieces from Twenty Piano Pieces - Körösfői ének
(no. 6) and Nógrádi verbunk (no. 20) were never published
and these manuscripts can be found in Veress archives at the Paul
Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland.
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| In March 2005, I also had the great pleasure to meet Mr. Claudio Veress, son of the composer. He kindly provided me a manuscript of Five Piano Pieces, probably composed in Rome after World War II. All these pieces (Sonata, Sonatina, Twenty Piano Pieces and Five Piano Pieces) are Veress's most important works for solo piano. In these he demonstrated his impressive proficiency in composing in many different ways. The stylistic diversity is striking: Sonata is composed in "Bartókian" style, Sonatina employs figures and expressions typical of baroque music, Twenty Piano Pieces are based on Hungarian songs and folk dances, Five Piano Pieces indicates the search for wider capabilities of piano in different timbrical nuances. | |||
| Sándor Veress was also a magnificent professor of music, rooted in the strong tradition of the Hungarian pedagogical music. His most significant pedagogic works are: piano school Fingerlarks, Two Sonatinas for Children (unpublished), Sonatina for Young Pianists and Homage to Wales. | |||
| Thanks to a co-operation between Bern University of the Arts, Switzerland and the recording company Musiques Suisses, in early 2007, on the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth, I was able to record a CD with the piano music by Sándor Veress. This CD contains the complete piano works by Sándor Veress (except for the school Fingerlarks), most of which have been recorded for the first time ever. | |||
| I am very thankful to Mr. Claudio Veress, Mr. Anton Zwolensky (Sándor Veress's student) and Mr. Denes Varjon (a Hungarian pianist and Veress's interpreter) for all their help and advice in the process of recording this CD, as well as, Dr. Felix Meyer (Director of the Paul Sacher Foundation) for providing me access to the Veress archives. | |||
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I strongly believe that the high artistic value
of Veress's music puts him on an equal footing with his great predecessors,
Béla Bartók and Zoltan Kodály, and that his compositions are worthy
to be performed more frequently.
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Jakub Tchorzewski
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