Books by Balint Andras Varga

Uniquely revealing interviews with one of the world's greatest living composers.

All-new interviews with 33 of the world's leading composers--from Adams and Crumb to Gubaidulina and Rihm--give unique insights into the creative process.Balint Andras Varga is perhaps the world's most respected interviewer of living composers. For The Courage of Composers and the Tyranny of Taste: Reflections on New Music, Varga has confronted thirty-three composers with quotations carefully chosen to elicit their thoughts about an issue that is crucial for any serious creative artist: How can one find courage to deal with the sometimes tyrannical expectations of the outside world? The result is an imaginary roundtable at which we encounter fresh, revealing, previously unpublished statements from such world-renowned composers as John Adams, Friedrich Cerha, George Crumb, Sofia Gubaidulina, Georg Friedrich Haas, Giya Kancheli, Gyorgy Kurtag, Helmut Lachenmann, Libby Larsen, Robert Morris, and Wolfgang Rihm. Also represented are composers who are becoming more prominent with the passing years -- Chaya Czernowin, Pascal Dusapin, and Rebecca Saunders -- as well as conductor-composer Michael Gielen, festival director Nicholas Kenyon, and music critics Paul Griffiths and Arnold Whittall. In The Courage of Composers and the Tyranny of Taste, composers and other insightful individuals comment on choices made, traps avoided, unforeseen consequences, proud accomplishments, occasional regrets: the whole range of experiences central to artistic creativity. Balint Andras Varga isthe acclaimed author of Gyorgy Kurtag: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages; Three Questions for 65 Composers; and From Boulanger to Stockhausen: Interviews and a Memoir (all available from University of Rochester Press).

First English-language publication of fascinating interviews with world-renowned musicians: composers (Gyorgy Ligeti), conductors (Claudio Abbado), singers (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf), instrumentalists (Yehudi Menuhin, Alfred Brendel), and more.Balint Andras Varga makes available here for the first time in English nineteen extended interviews with some of the most notable figures in music from the past fifty years, as well as lively snippets from interviews Varga conducted with thirteen other equally renowned musicians. The interviewees include singers Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Cathy Berberian; pianists Alfred Brendel and Arthur Rubinstein; violinists Isaac Stern and Yehudi Menuhin; conductors Claudio Abbado and Sir Neville Marriner; composers Gyorgy Ligeti and Karlheinz Stockhausen; and legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. Of special interest is an interview with the reclusive composer Gyorgy Kurtag, here published for the first time in any language. From Boulanger to Stockhausen concludes with a poignant memoir by Varga of his experiences growing up in a Jewish family in Hungary during World War II and the early years of Communist rule. Varga's recollections also include details about his many interviews with some of these remarkable musicians, and about his employment at the Hungarian state radio station and then in the music-publishing industry, which brought him to, among other places, Vienna, where he now lives. Interviewees: Claudio Abbado, Georges Auric, Cathy Berberian, Nadia Boulanger, Ernest Bour, Alfred Brendel, Aaron Copland, Sir Neville Cardus, Antal Dorati, Adam Fischer, Ivan Fischer, Geza Frid, Sir William Glock, Sylvia Goldstein, Alois Haba, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Gyorgy Kurtag, Walter Legge, Gyorgy Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Sir Neville Marriner, Yehudi Menuhin, Eugene Ormandy,Vladlemuter, Arthur Rubinstein, Gyorgy Sandor, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Isaac Stern, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Wolfgang Stresemann, Walter Susskind, Hans Swarowsky, Joseph Szigeti, Tibor Varga. Balint Andras Varga has spent morethan forty years working for and with composers. His previous books include Gyorgy Kurtag: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages and Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers, both published by the University of Rochester Press.