Tibor Szemzo

Issued by Leo Fegin's visionary record label in 1993, this refreshed and revised reissue collection of Hungarian composer Tibor Szemzo's chamber pieces with spoken text – composed at 1980s for the legendary GROUP 180 – is unlike anything else of its kind.

No one has survived life. Everyone has died from it so far. Man must realize that He is responsible for His own life and fate and must insist upon this responsibility beyond all limits. And since Man has dissociated Himself from the sphere of irrationality, He has no way of getting in touch with death, or of establishing control over it. How we achieve the final result is merely of secondary importance. If the vision is clear to everyone, there is no need at all to look back. In a time of complete mental disturbance, only one chance remains to us: crystal-clear thinking. This leads us back to total mental disturbance, which everyone has died from so far. - (Pavel Havlicek – Miklós Erdély – Tibor Hajas)

The common basis of the three works by Tibor Szemzo heard on this album is the inalienable relationship to text – as an a priori principle. Text and music: the formal attributes of significance, intentions, and levels of meaning inherent in verbal communication as it is transformed into audible code. Language and speech: the structural level of communication, where it becomes purposeful expression, acoustic statements of variable modality. Vocalization as sublimation. Sound and music: By becoming an auditory signal, communication is deprived of its sense and reduced to musical articulation and abstraction.

PERSONNEL:

• The Mixed Ensemble
• Pavel G. Havlicek – (narrator)
• Tibor Szemzo – (conductor)
• László Szegedi – (piano)
• Kinga Székely – (piano)
• Gergely Ittzés – (flute)
• Gellért Tihanyi – (clarinet, bass clarinet)
• Balázs Arnóth – (bassoon)
• Zoltán Holb – (horn)
• Tamás Tóth – (electric bass)
• Balázs Papp – (vibraphone, glockenspiel)
• Zsolt Romos – (flute and piccolo)
• Mihály Borbély – (clarinet)
• Mihály Farkas – (piano)
• Sándor Rigó – (alto sax)
• Ferenc Kovács – (trumpet)
• Gyula Tóth – (electric guitar)
• Kornél Fekete Kovács – (flugelhorn)
• László Göoz – (trombone)
• Pál Kalmusz – (baritone sax)
• Péter Magyar – (drums)
• Lajos Gyenge – (cymbals)
• Ágnes Apró – (viola)
• Vilmos Búza – (doublebass)
• László Fazekas – (drums)
• Tarina Szemzo – (narrator)
• Mária Zs. Szabó – (1st violin)
• Adél Miklós – (2nd vioilin)
• Eniko Nagy – (viola)
• Ilona Ribli – (cello)
• Jeno Oláh – (violin)
• Gábor Váradi – (viola)
• Gyula Maka – (bass)
• Ferenc Birkás – (clarinet)
• János Rigó – (cimbalom)
• Marcel Lóránd – (vocal solo)
• Sándor Kovács – (voice)
• Jeno Kohn – (voice)

Recorded at HR Studios, Budapest , September 1992

TRACKS:

• SIDE A: Skullbase Fracture .......21:19
• SIDE B: Optimistic Lecture ....... 08:57
• The Sex Appeal of Death .... 10:17