Szabó: Complete Solo Piano Works

Balog, József

Csaba Szabó (1936–2003) composed music in almost all genres: orchestral and vocal/choral-orchestral works, chamber music, songs, choral works, staged works, incidental musical for theatre and solos. From this important and varied oeuvre, this recording presents the complete works for piano solo of Csaba Szabó. His piano pieces were composed over a period of almost three decades, between 1955 and 1981, and it is striking to hear the extraordinary transformations in form, technique and richness of message that the composer’s style has undergone. Hungarian composer and musicologist Csaba Szabó was born in Ákosfalva (Acățari), Transylvania (Romania), in 1936 and graduated in composition from the G. Dima Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) under the tutelage of Gábor Jodál and János Jagamas, themselves both students of Zoltán Kodály. His first piano pieces are youthful compositions in which – beyond an abundant joy of composing for the piano – we discover the composer’s preferences and sources of inspiration: the appreciation of classical formal structures in the Studies: Vivace e Trio and playful Scherzando; the variation form (the composer’s favourite) in the 5 Variations; expressive and dramatic virtuosity in the Bagatel and the Little Suite’s Toccatino ungharese movement; and the accumulation of percussive effects in the Dance with the Fate. His studies and research into folk music led to inspiration from folk-song: the four movements of the Little Suite are a fine example of this, but perhaps even more beautiful are the Roaming Tune and the large-scale variations Moving away. The Parlando, Giusto e Corale, written in 1973, surprises the listener with a truly avant-garde turn.

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