Magyar Zene, 2007 (45. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

2007 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNY - Mesterházi Máté: Cantus vitae, cantus mortis: Két posztromantikus kísérlet az összefoglalásra

MESTERHÁZI MÁTÉ: Cantus vitae, cantus mortis A B STRACT________________________________ Máté Mesterházi CANTUS VITAE, CANTUS MORTIS_____________________________ Two post-romantic attempts at résumé Regrettable or not: musical re-discoveries are much more motivated by para-musi­cal than by musical reasons. This is how in recent years the Dohnányi renaissance has started, and this is how the Pressburger/pozsonyi-Viennese, German-Hun­­garian educated Franz Schmidt (1874-1939) came into the range of vision of Hun­garian musicologists. So much the more, Schmidt’s carreer had in many aspects a parallel development with that of Ernő Dohnányi (1877-1960). After Peter Laki’s pivotal study, available in English as well as in Hungarian, focusing on the similar beginning of both composers’ carreer, and in the light of Tibor Tallián’s lecture, held in Vienna as well as in Budapest, discovering psycho-social-cultural roots of the Hungarian flavours of Schmidt’s opera Notre-Dame, the present lecture tries to compare the chef d’oeuvres of Schmidt and Dohnányi. Both the oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (1938) and the symphonic cantata Cantus vitae (1941) were created in the same historic era, and there are many similarities between their social existences, historical receptions and their relations to the dilemma of tradition and modernity. With some outlook we can gain additional issues to the ideological problem of the post-romantic oratorio of the 20th century. Máté Mesterházi (*1958) studied musicology at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest. Later he pursued postgraduate studies in Berlin and Vienna. He is advisor musicologist of the Library of the Liszt Academy, Budapest. His writings focus on opera, opera peformance, as well as 20th century and contem­porary music. 27

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