Szemző Tibor: The Conscience: Narrative Chamber Pieces CD

1. Koponyaalapi törés / Skukllbase Fracture
narrátorra és TV-re, kamaraegyüttesre és cigányzenekarra
2. Optimista előadás (Erdély Miklós emlékére) / Optimistic Lecture
concertino lemezjátszóra és kevert együttesre
3. A halál szekszepilje (In Memoriam Tibor Hajas) / The Death Appeal of Sex
gyermek-narrátorra, kamaraegyüttesre és hangszalagra
Avant-Garde, Electro-Acoustic, Sound Sculpture, Mixed Media, Tape Music

All three pieces were recorded in 1992 at the Hungarian radio with lots of musicians taking part: MIXED ENSEMBLE, DANUBIUS STRING QUARTET, JENO OLAH GIPSYBAND, TRIO LORANO.

The CD is accompanied by a 20-page booklet. "It's hard not to admire the audacity and imaginative scope of these compositions". WIRE.


Issued by Leo Fegin's visionary record label in 1993, this collection of Hungarian composer Tibor Szemzo's chamber pieces with spoken text is unlike anything else of its kind. While it has certainly been attempted and accomplished many times, the pairing of a chamber ensemble with a reader, more often than not, offers mixed results. Szemzo has already accomplished one major project of this type with his recordings of the texts of Ludwig Wittgenstein with sound collages and chamber ensemble, and here he purifies his environment further on three major works dating from 1981, 1984, and 1888, respectively. Szemzo most recalls Gavin Bryars with his slow tempos, intentionally limited harmonic range, and repetitive phrasing -- however, this is hardly "minimalism." It is instead a miniature landscape painted in lush textures and colors with tonality as the basis for building a larger work. That "larger work" is the scope of Szmemzo's vision. These works all have the feel of film director Wim Wenders' auto-documentaries. Films such as Tokyo-Ga, Lisbon Story, and Room 666 all offer an intimate perspective on the perplexing situations one encounters while interacting with other humans on the planet. Szmemzo's compositions are like this too, as in "Skullbase Fracture," where a narrator tells an unbelievably strange and surreal story of an encounter with a man on a bus, all the while, no matter the drama or lack thereof, his chamber strings play the same eight measures over and over. With a larger ensemble comprised of reeds, winds, and percussion -- and a shorter running time -- Szmemzo offers us music to accompany the "Optimistic Lecture" by Rabbi Akiba and Miklos Erdély. In truth, this piece is a Yom Kippur song composed in memory of Erdély, with the great Jewish cantor Marcel Lorand. A written text is read underneath the singing as the band plays a fugue-like big-band vamp -- à la Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabakin Big Band -- throughout with some of the saxophones taking a bar or two for improvisation. It's the most exotic thing here and rightfully so -- it's more wonderfully exotic because musically none of this seems like a stretch, it all belongs together under the roof of tonal harmony and sharp, incisive rhythmic composition. The final work, "The Sex Appeal of Death" from 1981, with a childlike voice as its narrator, is easily the most disturbing and brilliant work here. Its text comes from an essay by Tibor Hajas, examining death via the attraction of simulacra and brokered images that are both results of and create ideologies of attraction toward death because they are mediated in the mirror of themselves as somehow above their situation. It is the only non-musical piece herein that the narrator speaks rhythmically, droningly precise in a childlike sing-song voice -- the composer's then seven-year-old daughter. Its hypnotic appeal is chant-like, with only sound collage and small percussive elements to accompany it. It is riveting in its method and the dark truth of its message. Even in these early works, Tibor Szemzo was forging an individual identity, one that draws on all the traditions he had been exposed to during his 20th century -- attractive and repulsive, and creating works of subtle yet provocative beauty. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide



Tibor Szemző

Active Decades: '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: 1955 in Budapest, Hungary
Genre: Avant-Garde
Styles: Electro-Acoustic, Mixed Media, Tape Music

Hungarian electro-acoustic composer Tibor Szemzö was born in Budapest in 1955, beginning his musical studies at the Kodály method school at the age of six. Initally playing the violin, his subsequent discoveries of rock prompted a move to guitar; the influence of John Coltrane and Charles Mingus next inspired Szemzö to form his own jazz trio (later a quartet), and in 1979 he founded the minimalist ensemble Group 180. Embarking on a solo career in 1983, Szemzö began integrating spoken word and visual elements into projects otherwise dominated by flute and live electronics, and in 1987 he issued his first solo recording, Snapshot from the Island. The downfall of Hungary's communist rule allowed him to began collaborating with various artists throughout Europe, and in 1998 Szemzö also formed a new chamber ensemble, the Gordian Knot. Other notable works include Ain't Nothing But a Little Bit of Music for Moving Pictures (the score to a collection of black-and-white home movies compiled by friend Péter Forgács), The Conscience (a trilogy of narrative-based chamber compositions) and Tractatus (a half-hour piece inspired by the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein).
---Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide