Death of Hungary’s would-be Schnittke

Death of Hungary’s would-be Schnittke

RIP

norman lebrecht

October 25, 2023

The Hungarian Music Information Centre has published a notice of the death of Istvan Lang, secretary general of the Association of Hungarian Musicians in the seminal years 1978 to 1990. He was also music director of the National Puppet Theatre.

Lang, who was 90, won international attention with a violin concerto in which the orchestra frets and squabbles while the soloists offers a tiny melody by way of therapy. His primary influences were Mahler and Ligeti. I described him once as a kind of Hungarian Schnittke, never afraid to attempt a bad joke.

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