Pianist Magdaléna Bajuszová performs new works by Slovak composers and revives music that has undeservedly remained on the margins of attention. Every public appearance of hers is an event.
In September she gave the first performance of Jozef Kolkovich's Piano Concerto; last Thursday at the New Slovak Music festival she presented another work by him and a new opus by Jevgenij Iršai. Tomorrow in the Dvorana of the Academy of Performing Arts she will perform a recital titled Béla Bartók and his Bratislava Pupils and Friends, including works by Alexander Albrecht and Štefan Németh-Šamorínsky.
Today we are rediscovering Bartók's tradition in Bratislava, although at the beginning of the 20th century he felt at home here. Why is that?
Great things often happen quietly. That is, after all, characteristic of Bartók. He is not a figure for whom fireworks are set off. He travelled the world, studied insects, languages, songs, and spent all his money on it. He never had the fame he deserved. But the tradition is still here; it simply proceeds hidden from view. Let us not imagine it was different in the past. Bartók supposedly founded a society for new music, but they organised only two concerts because nobody came. It is always the same thing, only in variations.
Is tomorrow's concert important so that we, who live here now, do not forget Béla Bartók?
For me Bartók is the greatest figure of 20th-century music. His unprecedented inventiveness, processed by a unique musical intellect, has no parallel. That he influenced the musical life of Pressburg in any form is essential.
Do you also have to discover Albrecht and Németh-Šamorínsky for the audience, just as you discover contemporary authors?
Not only for the audience. Both are discoveries for me as well. The spectrum of basic piano literature is so wide, and mastering piano technique requires so much time, that many treasures escape us. These days, for example, I live in the euphoria of discovering that Albrecht had an enormous sense of musical humour, or that Németh wrote a beautiful piece, Epitaph, two years before his death, built from only two tones. I teach at a university and did not know it. Our musical history is so small, and even so we know nothing about it, myself included.
The composer Jozef Kolkovich, who lives in the USA, was discovered here two years ago thanks to your study of his extensive cycle of piano Preludes. What was at the beginning?
At the beginning was Vladimír Godár - the composer and the person behind many extraordinary projects - but also a famous coincidence. A few years ago, the organisers of New Slovak Music needed to change the programme quickly. Vlado Godár handed me the score of Kolkovich's Preludes. I had to prepare a selection in a very short time. The notation looked frightening, as if it could not be played. Yet even graphically there was something fascinating about it. I wanted to know whether it was really possible.
Later, however, you studied the entire demanding cycle.
Yes, and it was a great experience. After a long time I held a contemporary work in my hands in which I did not have to search for something or wonder how to help it. On the contrary, it fascinated me like the works of great masters. It was deep, wise music that touched something important. It also contained a mystery that would not let me rest. I was also struck by the virtuosity of Kolkovich's piano music, something rare in contemporary Slovak music.
What do you mean by virtuosity?
I derive virtuosity from the word virtus, meaning courage, in a broader sense than mere brilliance. When Jozef recently thanked me for the performance, I had to object. I do not know which of us is more useful to the other, because Kolkovich's music allows many pianistic virtues to shine.
Did the unusual quality of Kolkovich's music benefit from his isolation in the USA, away from Slovakia and the musical world?
It is possible. He earns his living in a civilian profession and is not part of a composers' community. He does not spend time thinking and debating where to belong, how to compose, which festival to get into, who influenced or destroyed whom, who will think what and who will be offended. Perhaps isolation is one way of remaining artistically free.
You also walk your own path of quality quite directly. That must require strong motivation and resilience. Where do you find them?
The composer Valentin Silvestrov says that world culture can also come from the province. Dürer and Bruegel are provincial in comparison with Leonardo, and yet they are part of world culture. This is a very strong idea. For me, concentration on a certain criterion is the only possible way of existing. I do not need special strength for it; this perspective allows me to survive everything else. I am overloaded with teaching and practise, so to speak, in my free time, like all pedagogically active artists. But perhaps precisely because I do not have to earn my bread by giving concerts, I am not under that pressure. I would rather play fewer concerts with exceptional dramaturgy than many routine ones.
Are you striving for perfection?
Not at all. The system as it is set up here does not allow us to live the regime appropriate to a concert artist, so preparation often takes place under incredible time pressure or other incredible circumstances. What matters is the relationship to the work and responsibility. This is especially important with contemporary authors or unknown pieces. We must not rely on the fact that the audience does not know a new work, that there is no interpretative model, or that the composer will be grateful merely because the piece was performed. Even the most classical music was once new.
How do you recognise quality?
When a young composer comes to me with arrangements of folk songs, I cannot know in advance whether they are attempts, average pieces, or whether Bartók of the 21st century is standing before me. I find out only when I look closely at the work. There is also responsibility towards what we might call the Slovak cultural context. Musical culture has many layers. The Olympus is important, but so is the underlying soil, where different levels and types of mastery gradually create the ground for exceptional achievements.
How do you cope with insufficient performances as a pianist dependent on collaboration with other musicians?
With orchestras, the greatest limitation is the insufficient number of rehearsals. We enter such collaborations knowing there will be compromise and hoping that the soloist's approach will be decisive. As for chamber music, I have less and less desire each year to take part in certain projects, and my only regular partner remains the violinist Milan Paľa.
You focus on lesser-known titles and contemporary music. But surely, as a pianist, you sometimes want to play a great Romantic concerto.
I do not feel specialised. It is another matter that I am perceived that way, because my productions in the area of new music attract the most attention. But without deep knowledge and interpretation of the classical golden repertoire, we cannot discover the potential of contemporary works. It is true, however, that my generation practically does not know the institution of the pianist-soloist before a large orchestra.
Why is that?
I do not know. But one must focus on what is possible, not on what is impossible. Specialisation as concentration is possible, but it has a dangerous reverse side. For me it is vitally important to move through the entire space between Beethoven and Kolkovich, because one illuminates the other, the new illuminates the old and vice versa.
You seem reserved, but on stage you do not shy away from emotion. How do you explain the psychological contrast between the artist as a person among people and as a creator?
On stage I always burn down to ash, and for two days I can barely move, literally physically. Everything continues to tremble inside me for a long time. And if I were not reserved, as you say, I would probably go mad. According to Nietzsche, artists differ from other people not so much by some essential difference, but by an essential exposure, a kind of divine nakedness. An ordinary person is armoured with a thousand layers that belong to the surface of life. That is very precise.
In what sense is it precise for you?
It also applies within one person. Life and the human being have many dimensions. Events take place on several levels. Art reflects life in its deepest, most beautiful and most terrible positions. It does not depict the surface or everyday emotions, but essence. That is why manifestations of an artist's personality may seem contradictory. In reality the contradiction is only apparent, because one part belongs to the surface and another to the essence. They form a perfect harmony and compensate for one another. I do not believe in the divisibility of the artistic being, just as I do not believe in dividing talent into separate components. Everything is ultimately covered by one spirit.
Does the famous Albrechtian spirit of music still live in Bratislava?
It is very well hidden. But if I did not believe it lived, I would not go to play tomorrow's concert.
Andrea Serečinová, Denník Pravda, 15 November 2010