Hungarian Cultural Centre - Programme Brochure Apr-Jul 2014 WWI

Our World War I Centenary Events willtransport you back in time to the vibrantcultural, intellectual and artistic scene ofthe early twentieth-century. We willrecreate the atmosphere of the famousHungarian coffee houses where everythingwas happening at the time by turning the Hungarian Cultural Centre into theGrand Budapest Café of Covent Garden.

Early twentieth-century Budapest boasteda plethora of coffee houses where writers,editors, artists, journalists and intellec tu -als met, exchanged thoughts and ideas,and often worked. As the internationallyrenowned Hungarian writer Sándor Máraiput it ‘people do not come here for a coffeebut to live their lives’.

At our Grand Budapest Café you will be ableto relive some of this experience, and whileyou are sipping your coffee and samplingHungarian delicacies, you will be able to

explore Hungarian fine art, literature, musicand the history of the pre-war era with thehelp of our most distinguished speakers.

2014 marks an important milestone in HCC’s history too as the institute turns 15 this year. We are celebrating the anniversary on 15 May with foundingdirector H.E. Ms Katalin Bogyay FRSA,FWAA, Ambassador and PermanentDelegate of Hungary to UNESCO, Presidentof the 36th Session of UNESCO GeneralConference, who opened the HungarianCultural Centre in 1999.

Please come and join us in celebratinghistory and making history together.

Dr. Beata Pászthy Gyöngyi Végh Barbara Révész Andrea Kós Fruzsina Kováts

6–19May

ma

y 2

01

4hungarian cultural centre • london

Our WWI Centenary Event Series have been made possible with the generoussupport of the WWI Centenary Memorial Committee in Hungary.

Tuesday | 6 May | 7pm (Private view)≥ Hungarian Cultural Centre ✉ 10 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7NA

e EXHIBITION

wwi centenary event

One of The Eight — Róbert Berény Works from a private collection

During the era preceding the First World War, the most progressive group of paintersand the quickest in adapting international trends was the Eight. Despite the fact thatthe three exhibitions they had – at the turn of 1909–1910, in 1911 and in 1912 – mark

only a short period of time inthe history of Hungarianmodernism, their significancecannot be emphasised enoughgiven that their appearanceresulted in the birth of avant-garde in Hungary.

The youngest and perhaps themost talented painter of themall was Róbert Berény, who had a very successful career in Paris before the group wasformed: at the age of 19–20, he had a joint exhibition withHenri Matisse and the Fauves.During the three exhibitions of the Eight, most of the worksdisplayed were his: when theirsecond exhibition took place

in 1911, he had 49 oil paintings shown, more thanhis fellow painters combined. Berény’s versatilitydid not solely manifest itself in the differentgenres of painting and graphic designing; besides visual arts, he was very much engaged in music too. As a friend of Béla Bartók, the great Hungarian composer of whom he painted a portrait in 1913, not only did he write musicreviews and accounts of the most modern musicalevents, but Berény also played the violin, the violaand the piano, and he even composed music.

hungarian cultural centre • london

ma

y

20

14


The exhibition presents selected works, chiefly graphic pieces, from the privatecollection of Róbert Berény’s monographist and wife, many of which were on displayat the time of the exhibition of the Eight. The exhibition will familiarise those presentwith Berény’s works done in cubist, fauvist or expressionist style. Moreover, therarest pieces of his oeuvre, his applied artistic productions, connected to theembroideries designed by him in 1912, will also be introduced.

Gergely Barki is a PhD candidate in Art History at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapestand a research fellow at the Research Centre for the Humanities – HungarianAcademy of Sciences – Institute of Art History (RCH-HAS-IAH). His dissertation is the monograph and catalogue resumé of Róbert Berény, one of the most prominent

figures of Hungarianmodernism. After earninghis Master’s degree in arthistory from Eötvös LorándUniversity (2002), Gergelybecame the research fellowof the MTA-ELTEUniversity ResearchInstitute for Art Historyand since 2006 he worksfor the RCH-HAS-IAH.

Since then he has curatedexhibitions on fauvism andHungarian modernism inHungary: Magyar VadakPárizstól Nagybányáig

(Hungarian Fauves from Paris to Nagybánya) 1904–1914, Hungarian National Gallery,Budapest, 2006. A Nyolcak– Cézanne és Matisse bûvöle tében (The Eight: Enchantedby Cézanne and Matisse) Museum Janus Pannonius, Pécs, 2010. A Nyolcak (The Eight),Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 2011, in France (Fauves Hongrois, Céret, Musée d’artmoderne, Le Cateau Cambrésis, Musée Matisse, Dijon, Musée des beaux-arts,2008–2009) and in Belgium (Dialogue de fauves – Fauvisme hongrois 1904–1914),L’hotel de ville de Bruxelles, 2010.

He also curated a Europe-wide travelling show dedicate to the first Hungarianmodernist artists’ group, The Eight. The first venue was in Austria: „DIE ACHT –Ungarns ‘Highway’ in die Moderne”, Kunstforum, Vienna, 2012. Recently he curatedAllegro barbaro – Béla Bartók et la modernité hongroise, 1905–1920 at the Muséed’Orsay in Paris (2013–2014).

Exhibition open: 7 May–13 June Opening hours: Mon–Thurs 10am–5pm, Fri 10am–2pm

Δ Free but booking is required. Please call 020 7240 8448 or email [email protected] keep up-to-date please join the event on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/HCCLondon

ma

y 2

01

4

Tuesday | 13 May | 7pm≥ Hungarian Cultural Centre ✉ 10 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7NA

e TALK

wwi centenary event

Early Twentieth-century Hungarian Fine Art Dancing on the Volcano: Hungarian Artists on the Brink of the Great WarProfessor Peter Vergo, University of Essex

During the 1890s and early 1900s, only a few Hungarian painters enjoyed a genuinelyinternational reputation, among them Mihály Munkácsy and József Rippl-Rónai. But from about 1905 onwards, a number of younger artists began to set an overtlyinternationalist agenda, looking to Paris in particular for inspiration. The mostimportant of them belonged to the so-called ‘Group of Eight’, an exhibiting societyfounded in Budapest in 1909–10.

This lecture looks at the activities of some prominent members of this group,including their reaction to the work of important French painters such as Cézanne and Matisse. It also considers how the outbreak of war put an end to this fruitfulperiod of artist exchanges, and how artists responded to the war, in some cases as official war artists, in others as simple soldiers creating a vivid and often movingrecord of what they saw and experienced.

In Hungary, as in the German-speaking countries, the outbreak of war had initially been greeted with a degree of patriotic fervour. But, as defeat loomed, the work ofmany Hungarian artists increasingly began to reflect pacifist, left-wing or openlyrevolutionary leanings. Several of the most important of those artists belonged to the circle around Lajos Kassák, whose periodical Ma (‘Today’) was a focus for radicalmovements not just in painting but in all the arts, including music and literature.


ma

y

20

14

se

lf

-p

or

tr

ait

wit

h s

ol

die

r’s

ha

t

by

h

ug

ó s

ch

eib

er

, 19

17

de

ad

ho

rs

es

by

j

án

os

va

sz

ar

y,

af

te

r 19

14


Poster design, one of the high points of Hungarian visual art of this period, played a central role during the years of defeat, revolution and the establishment of the‘Republic of Councils’. Several members of the ‘Group of Eight’, including figures such as Róbert Berény and Bertalan Pór, experimented with this genre, putting theirconsiderable talents at the service of the short-lived Hungarian revolution. The talkends with a brief look at the counter-revolutionary backlash, the establishment of the‘White Terror’ and the exodus of so many Hungarian artists, who quit their native landfor destinations such as Vienna, Berlin and Moscow.

Peter Vergo is Professor of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex. He has published widely, includinghis book Art in Vienna 1898–1918 (new edition due in 2015);Kandinsky, Complete Writings on Art; and The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: 20th Century German Painting.His exhibition Vienna 1900 was the centrepiece of the 1983 Edinburgh Festival, for which he was awarded theAustrian Golden Order of Merit. More recently, he has beenworking on early twentieth-century Hungarian art, literatureand music.

Δ Free but booking is required. Please call 020 7240 8448 or email [email protected]. To keep up-to-date please join the event on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/HCCLondon

ma

y 2

01

4

se

in

e b

y l

aj

os

tih

an

yi,

1908

Wednesday | 14 May | 7pm≥ Hungarian Cultural Centre ✉ 10 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7NA

e TALK wwi centenary event

Hungarian Literature in the Early Twentieth CenturyProfessor Mihály Szegedy-Maszák (Indiana University, Bloomington and Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)

What are the lasting achievements of the literary culture of early twentieth-centuryHungary? Modernism became institutionalised with the publication of four journals.Huszadik Század (Twentieth Century, 1900–1919) was edited by the political scientistOszkár Jászi (1875–1957). Nyugat (West, 1908–41) became associated with the poetsEndre Ady (1877–1919), Mihály Babits (1883–1941), Dezsô Kosztolányi (1885–1936), and Milán Füst (1888–1967), the author of the novel The Story of My Wife (1942). A Szellem (Mind, 1911) was the organ of a group of intellectuals that included BélaBalázs (1884–1919), the librettist of Bartók, the art critic Lajos Fülep (1885–1970) and the philosopher György Lukács (1885–1971).

A Tett (Action, 1915–16) and its successor Ma (Today, 1916–25), edited by the free-versepoet and visual artist Lajos Kassák (1887–1967),a close friend of the painters known as ”TheEight” and Moholy-Nagy, were the journals ofthe Hungarian avant-garde movement.

Among these authors Kosztolányi occupiessomething of a unique position in Hungarianliterature. He is the only Hungarian author tohave succeeded not only in writing first-ratelyric verse, essayistic prose, and narrativefiction (novels and short stories), influenced by Chinese and Japanese poetry and psycho -


ma

y

20

14

gyula krúdy

zsigmond móricz

mihály babits

endre ady

dezsô kosztolányi


ma

y 2

01

4

analysis, but also in producing a wide range of translations of lasting value. A priest of the art of writing in his lifetime, he is one of the most widely read authors incontemporary Hungary, and a figure of international reputation to whom numerousother writers have paid homage, from Thomas Mann to Miroslav Krleža, from DaniloKiš, Deborah Eisenberg, Sándor Márai, and Attila József to Péter Esterházy, whosework Esti (2010) is based on Kosztolányi's anti-novel Kornél Esti (1933).

Mihály Szegedy-Maszák is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and CulturalStudies at Eötvös Loránd University, Professor Emeritus of Central Eurasian Studiesat Indiana University, a member of Academia Europaea (London) and the HungarianAcademy of Sciences. He is the author of Literary Canons: National and International

(2001), sixteen books in Hungarian (among them monographs onthe authors Zsigmond Kemény, Sándor Márai, Géza Ottlik andDezsô Kosztolányi), editor-in-chief of a three-volume history ofHungarian literature (2007) and the journal Hungarian Studies,co-author of Théorie littéraire (1989), Epoche –Text – Modalität(1999), A Companion to Hungarian Studies (1999), Angezogenund abgestoßen: Juden in der ungarischen Literatur (1999), The Phoney Peace: Power and Culture in Central Europe 1945–49(2000), National Heritage – National Canon (2001) and Der lange,dunkle Schatten: Studien zum Werk von Imre Kertész (2004).

He has published articles on the culture of the Habsburg Monarchy, the theory of thenovel, Romanticism, modernism, postmodernism, translation and inter-art studies,Richard Wagner, Henry James, Gustav Mahler, Béla Bartók, Ezra Pound, WilhelmFurtwängler and Buster Keaton in English, French, German, Polish, Chinese and Hungarian.

Δ Free but booking is required. Please call 020 7240 8448 or email [email protected] keep up-to-date please join the event on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/HCCLondon

café central, budapest

Thursday | 15 May | 6.30pm≥ Hungarian Cultural Centre ✉ 10 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7NA

e PRESENTATION & BOOK LAUNCH

The Art of Cultural Diplomacy H.E. Ms Katalin Bogyay FRSA, FWAA Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Hungary to UNESCO President of the 36th Session of UNESCO General Conference, Founding director of the Hungarian Cultural Centre

Opening words by Dr. Dezsô Szabó, Director, International Directorate, Balassi Institute

Katalin Bogyay remembers…

We are all different from each other. Butdiversity is the source of strength andbeauty of our planet. For me, diversity isnot a burden but a source of inspiration.

“You are not a drop in the ocean” sang the13th century Persian poet, Rumi, “you arethe entire ocean in a drop.” It is with suchmindset, that we must look to our future –seeing every human being as an ocean offeelings, hopes and aspirations.

Promoting cultural diversity has been mylife-long occupation – I have devoted myprofessional career to connecting peopleof diverse cultural backgrounds throughthe universal language of music, art andcommunication.

To “build the defenses of peace in the minds of men and women,” as UNESCO’sconstitution declares, is the very essence of the Organization. “With our thoughts we make the world,” teaches us Buddha.

But in isolation, no matter how powerful, the ideas within individual minds will notimprove the lives of others. We must unite across the existing national, ethnic, andsocial boundaries to give our ideas a chance to cross-pollinate and spread for a trulyglobal impact. And the most effective tool towards this end is the soft power ofcultural, scientific and sports diplomacy.

I remember the time I started to set up the Hungarian Cultural Centre in CoventGarden. I wanted to create a “fashionable Hub” where ideas, cultures, religions,thoughts, artists and different people can meet each other. And where Hungarianculture can act as a real bridge and as a source of inspiration. That was the base of the journey which started in 1999 in Maiden Lane…


ma

y

20

14


ma

y 2

01

4

Katalin Bogyay has served as Hungarian Ambassador and Permanent Delegate toUNESCO since 2009 and in the capacity of the President of the General Conference of UNESCO (2011-2013). A tireless and committed cultural bridge-builder throughouther multifaceted professional life, she has occupied the posts of Hungary’s State Secretaryfor International Affairs for Education and Culture (2006-2009) and the Director of the Hungarian Cultural Centre in Covent Garden, London, UK (1999–2006). She hasalso led a career of international television broadcaster, film producer and writer.

She is a firm believer of cultural diplomacy based on intercultural dialogue, as demon -strated in setting up the Hungarian Cultural Centre in London Covent Garden, andmasterminded Magyar Magic (2003-2004), the Hungarian Cultural Season in the U.K.introducing 2000 artists in 500 events in collaboration with more than 300 British partners.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (UK) and of the World Academy of Art andScience (US). She is an International Advisor and the President of Cultural Diplomacy & The Arts program to the Institute of Cultural Diplomacy (Berlin, Germany) and to theInstitute for Global and European Studies, IGES (Corvinus University, Budapest). She is an honorary member of the London-based Imago-International Psychoanalytical Society.

Katalin Bogyay is an active promoter of music as the medium of interculturalcooperation and understanding. She is a founding member of the Liszt AcademyNetwork , based in London, and a board member of the Budapest PhilharmonicOrchestra, the oldest Orchestra of Hungary, founded by Ferenc Erkel.

She is a recipient of several high honors, including the Commander’s Cross of theOrder of Merit of Hungary for her outstanding contribution to Hungarian culture andcultural diplomacy, Nehru Gold Medal of UNESCO (2013), Special Trophy of Fair Playfor promoting sports diplomacy from the International Fair Play Committee (2013),the Chain Bridge Award by Hungary for her services to Hungarian foreign affairs(2013), the Grand Cross of the Order of Sahametrei by King Norodom Sihamoni ofCambodia for intercultural cooperation (2013), Officer of the Order of Leopold by King Albert II of Belgium (2008), Aphelandra, the humanitarian prize for her workperformed internationally building bridges between people( 2009) and the Knight’sCross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary for her contribution tointernational culture (2005).

The Balassi Institute at a glance

Dr. Dezsô Szabó, director for international relations will provide a short overview of the Balassi Institute andits strategic goals. The Balassi Institute plays a key role in the professional direction of Hungariancultural affairs as its main objective is to project aquality-oriented image of our nation, thereby increasingHungary’s prestige internationally and strengthening and preserving all facets of Hungarian culture bothwithin and outside of Hungary’s borders.

Please note this event is by invitation only.

Thursday | 15 May≥ Hungarian Cultural Centre ✉ 10 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7NA

e CONCERT

Early Twentieth-century Hungarian Music Tamás Vásáry › piano | Zsuzsa Vámosi-Nagy › flute

Tamás Vásáry needs no introduction to UK audiences. He rose to promi nence as a virtuoso pianist in Hungary, but flour ished internationally in the 1960s and 70sfollowing his departure to the West. In the late 70s he turned to conducting and

toured extensively in that role,especially in the U.S.

Tamás Vásáry was born inDebrecen, Hungary, on 11 August1933. He was a child prodigy,debuting at eight in a performanceof Mozart’s D major Concerto, K. 107. In 1956, the year of the failedHungarian Revolution, he fledHungary and settled in Switzerland.

Tamás Vásáry debuted at the Royal Festival Hall of London in1961, which performance started off his interna tional career. Fromthat year on, he was given thousandsof concerts at the most prestigiousmusical centres of the worldlocated in London, Paris, Berlin,Vienna, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon,Luxemburg, Stockholm and Oslo. In 1962 György Széll introduced him to New Yorkers during aconcert at the Carnegie Hall.

Tamás Vásáry has collaborated with the world’s most prominentorchestras and most acknowledgedconductors on a regular basis – for instance Ernest Ansermet,André Cluitens, Paul Kletzki, Ferenc Fricsai, André Previn,


ma

y

20

14

programme

Poulenc: SonataTaffanel: Fantasy on ‘Der Freischütz’ by WeberBeethoven: Moonlight Sonata Op. 27, No. 2Kodály: Marosszék DancesChopin: Chopin Andante spianato et Grandepolonaise Op.22 Liszt: Legend No. 2 ‘St. Francis of Paola Walking on the Waves’ Liszt: Dreams of Love S.541Liszt: Rigoletto Fantasy Paraphrase


ma

y 2

01

4

Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Eugen Jockhum, Erick Leinsdorf,Antal Doráti, Bernard Haitink, Kurt Sanderling, György Solti, Rudolf Kempe, NevilleMarriner and Adrian Boult. Moreover, he is a frequent guest of the most notablefestivals taking place in Salzburg, Edinburgh, Berlin, Granada, Aldeburgh, Tanglewood(USA), Cleveland Blossom, Stresa, Hong Kong, London or Budapest.

As a conductor, Vásáry has worked with over a hundred orchestras including the Berlin Philharmoniker, the New York Philharmonic, the Dallas Philharmonic, theDetroit Philharmonic, the Houston Philharmonic, the Baltimore Philharmonic, theDenver Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the RoyalPhilharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Orchestre National de France, the Santa Cecilia(Rome), the Torino Rai and the Spanish National. Furthermore, he was director andfirst conductor of two English orchestras; the Northern Sinfonia (1979-1982) and theBournemouth Sinfonietta (1989-1997). Between 1993 and 2004, he was director ofmusic of the Symphony Orchestra of the Hungarian Radio. He has been honorarydirector of music of the orchestra since 2004.

Zsuzsa Vámosi-Nagy graduated from the LisztFerenc Academy of Music (Budapest) in 2006 as a student of Professor Lóránt Kovács. She also studied in the Hague with Emily Beynon.Afterwards, on full scholarship, she attended the postraduate course at the Royal Academy of Music in London and was tutored by ProfessorWilliam Bennett. In 2008, she was awarded thepresti geous Queen's Commendation forExcellence prize by the Academy and receivedher diploma with distinction.

She attended several international flute masterclasses (Michel Debost, Peter Lloyd, WilliamBennett, Aurele Nicolet, András Adorján, Jiri Valek, Jaime Martin, Emily Beynon, LornaMcGhee) and international flute competitionswith great success (two 1st and three 2nd prizes in different categories of competitions at theSummer Academy of Music in Semmering,

winner of the International Flute Competition in Bukarest and the 11th InternationalFlute Competition in Timisoara). In 2008 and 2009, she received the Fischer Anniescholarship, and in 2009 she was awarded the highly ranked Junior Prima prize.

Zsuzsa Vámosi-Nagy is an active orchestral player as well: she has been principalflutist of the Ventoscala Symphony Orchestra since 2003 and the Solti ChamberOrchestra since 2008. From 2006 to 2008, she was principal flutist of the RoyalAcademy of Music Symphony Orchestra in London. She has regurarly been invited as a guest principal flutist in the Fundación Excelentia Symphony Orchestra of Madrid since September 2013.


ma

y

20

14 In 2008 and 2010, Zsuzsa was a teaching assistant of William Bennett at his International

Flute Summer Schools. She appeared as a soloist of international flute conventions inManchester and New York. Moreover, she regularly gives solo and chamber musicconcerts in Hungary and abroad. Zsuzsa is currently attending the doctoral course of theLiszt Ferenc Academy of Music, being also a teacher of the Weiner Leó Conservatory.


HCC’s 15th Anniversary events have been made possible with the generous support of Nemzeti Kulturális Alap (NKA).

Monday | 19 May | 6–8pm≥ Embassy of Hungary London ✉ 35 Eaton Place, London SW1X 8BY

e SYMPOSIUM

wwi centenary event

An Evening of History Hungary and the UK in World War I

The audience of this symposium will be transported back in time with the help of Sir Bryan Cartledge, former British diplomat and author of The Will to Survive,Professor Norman Davies, history lecturer at the University of Oxford and ProfessorGéza Jeszenszky, historian and former Foreign Minister of Hungary, who will give their insights into the goings on behind the scenes.

The discussion will be moderated by the writer Mátyás Sárközi, who will share with ussome anecdotes about his grandfather, the world famous playwright Ferenc Molnár, whoalso served as a war correspondent. During the discussion you will be able to enjoy drinksand contemporary Hungarian delicacies prepared by the chef of the Embassy of Hungary.

This WWI Centenary Event has been organised in partnership with the Embassy of Hungary in London, the Hungarian Cultural Centre and St Anthony’s College of Oxford University.


sir bryan cartledge, professor norman davies, professor géza jeszenszky, mátyás sárközi

Documents

Hungarian Cultural Centre - Programme Brochure Apr-Jul 2014 WWI