New Music for Stuttgart
Just now Márton Illés’s center of action is easy to define. With his piano concerto Rajzok II and two of his orchestral works, the 43-year-old composer will repeatedly be in Stuttgart’s limelight in the near future. Such a striking coincidence gives the »uptodate« editors reason enough to lure him away from his crowded desk for a short interview.
Frank Reinisch (FR): The new piece for the Stuttgart State Orchestra and its new principal conductor Cornelius Meister is the first large-scale orchestral work since your great success with Ez-tér, the SWR Symphony Orchestra’s prizewinner for the best orchestral work at the Donaueschingen Festival in 2017. How strong an impact does such a powerful predecessor have on the new project, or can you get away from it in your new work without any problem?
2 – 2019
36
I have a language that is constantly changing and evolving
Márton Illés (MI): A project premiere undergone and experienced always brings along with it new energy and inspiration, but also new tasks for future works. I have a language that is constantly changing and evolving. Not from one day to the next, most certainly not from one piece to the next, but over the years. Although the individual works are self-sufficient, they are not isolated entities with closed “one-way concepts,” but indispensable evolutionary phases of a long-term transformation process. In this respect, one work without the
existence of the others is unimaginable, and the contents of the individual works are in lively correspondence with each other. FR: What else can you tell us today about the new orchestral piece? MI: Four pieces titled Drei Aquarelle [Three Watercolours], scored for smaller solo and chamber ensembles, have been composed. Unlike the “larger” cycle Rajzok (Drawings), the textures of the Aquarelle are more transparent, filigreed, somewhat more finely crocheted overall, with more lyrical and formal freedom. Unlike the Drei Aquarelle, the ensemble pieces recently performed in Paris, the just composed work Víz-színtér (Hungarian and untranslatable: Watercolour Space/Water Scene) is the most streamlined of all my orchestral compositions. This piece will most likely be the last, crowning Aquarell stage. FR: Shortly before the premiere of Vízszín-tér you will perform as pianist your piano concerto Rajzok (Drawings) II in Stuttgart with the SWR Symphony Orchestra.