Ákos Rózmann (HU)

22/01/2024
12 Stations VI-I

Historical figure in electronic music, creator of some of the most monumental and dramatic cycles of works of the 20th century. Rózmann was born in Budapest. He studied composition with Rezső Sugár between 1957 and 1961. From 1961 onward he attended the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, studying composition with Endre Szervánszky and organ with Sebestyén Pécsi. After graduating he worked as a teacher of score reading. In the late 1960s he composed film music for Mafilm. In 1971 he goes to Sweden for composition studies with Ingvar Lidholm at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. He began working at the Elektronmusikstudion (EMS, Stockholm’s electroacoustic music studio). The first result of his experiments is Impulsions, a cycle of short electronic pieces from 1974, which won third prize at the Concours International de Musique Électroacoustique in Bourges in 1976. In 1974 Rózmann settled in Stockholm, spending the rest of his life in and around the Swedish capital. From the 1970s onward he thought of recorded electroacoustic music as the only suitable medium for his creative ideas. His first public appearance as a composer is when he created Bilder inför drömmen och döden (Images of Dream and Death) in 1978. From 1978 for nineteen years he was organist at the Catholic Cathedral in Stockholm. The year 1978 also marked the beginning of his second large-scale work, Tolv stationer (Twelve Stations), the first to use recorded sounds of acoustic origin (while the previous two used entirely synthetic material). This cycle of more than six hours engages Rózmann until 2001, resulting in an opera. The first parts are premiered at the Stockholm House of Culture in 1984. In 2014 Mego Records editions released a 7-CD box set of the entire Stations series. In the early 1980s Rózmann began building a private electroacoustic studio in the basement of the Stockholm Catholic Cathedral. He also continues to work at EMS where he remains a frequent visitor until the end of his life. Between 1980 and 2005 he composed a series of eight electroacoustic works, each with the title Orgelstycke (Organ Piece). Organ sounds are his most prized source material, in addition to the human voice and the sounds of zither, string instruments and prepared piano. The third cycle of epic length, Rytmer och melodier (Rhythms and Melodies), is composed in 1987. Mentre quasi tutte le sue composizioni sono eseguite in Svezia durante la sua vita, solo una è eseguita in un concerto pubblico nel suo paese natale, l’Ungheria. Nel 1997 termina De två med tre instrument (Due, con tre strumenti). Nel gennaio 2005 completa il suo ultimo lavoro, Orgelstycke nr III/a (Pezzo d’organo Nr. III/a), riprendendo un’idea concepita negli anni ottanta. Durante cinque pomeriggi consecutivi dello Stockholm New Music Festival, è eseguito il suo ciclo Gloria preceduto da Orgelstycke nr IV (Kyrie eleison), sotto il titolo collettivo Mässa (Messa). Il ciclo Gloria, un’ampia trasposizione musicale del corrispondente testo liturgico, della durata di sette ore, viene composto tra il 1989 e il 2004.