Art Alert: Rediscovering a Hungarian composer at the Cairo Opera

A concert commemorating Hungarian composer László Lajtha (1892-1963) will take place on Sunday 26 May and will feature a Hungarian flutist and violinist

On Sunday 26 May, Hungarian musicians Peter Olah, a flutist, and Robert Ritner, a violinist, accompanied by pianist David Hales, will invite the audience to a commemorative evening performing works by the Hungarian composer László Lajtha.
While 2013 sees several anniversaries in the music world – RichardWagner (1813-1883), Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) – Hungarians have their own reason to shed light on one of the country's leading composers, László Lajtha (1892-1963), the fiftieth anniversary of whose death also falls in 2013.
"The season 2012-2013 is marked by intensified concerts of Lajtha's music all across Hungary and in many international locations," Peter Olah, the flutist who will perform in the evening, told Ahram Online.
"Lajtha is being now rediscovered, after the many decades that his music has been suppressed by the communist government, basically due to the composer's religious stances, even though his input to the music scene is not any less important than the one of Zoltán Kodály. The latter one was luckier and found support of the regime," Olah commented.
Olah added that it is Lajtha's granddaughter who has been extending enormous efforts to bring the composer back to light and initiate contact with a multitude of Hungarian cultural centres and diplomatic institutions around the world.
"Being connected to the Hungarian embassy, we thought that it is equally important to present the composer to the Egyptian audiences," Olah commented.
According to Olah, Lajtha composed many interesting and challenging works for flute. On Sunday, the musicians will perform Solo Flute Op. 69, Sonate en Concert for Violin and Piano Op. 68 and Sonate en Concert for Flute and Piano Op. 64.
László Lajtha (1892-1963), Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, ethnomusicologist and a researcher began his studies of music with Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945) at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music and then advised by his teacherwent on to complete his studies in Paris.
The warm relationship, filled with mutual respect between the two composers, continued over many years, and Bartók's inspiration and assistance had a paramount importance on Lajtha's development. Bartók is known to have called Lajtha and Kodaly "leaders of Hungarian modern music."
Born in 1974, Peter Olah is a Hungarian flutist who since 2005 has been principal flute player of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. He graduated at the Music Academy in Budapest and he continued his studies at the Music University in Graz (Austria), and at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich (Germany). He is a student of the internationally acclaimed concert flutist Andras Adorjan.
Hungarian violinist Robert Ritner was born in 1971 and graduated from the "G.Dima" Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca/ Romania, where he studied under Stefan Ruha, becoming a soloist and music teacher. Since 2001 he has been the assistant konzertmeister of the Cairo Opera Orchestra.
David Hales, who is from the UK, is a staff member at the Cairo Opera Company and performs regularly with solo, chamber, as well as large instrumental and vocal ensembles.
Programme:
8pm, Sunday 26 May
Small Hall, Cairo Opera House, Zamalek, Cairo
http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/71985.aspx