The composer Géza Frid

[Toni Bernet]

 Géza Frid left Hungary for good in 1929, where he had received his musical training from his teachers Kodaly (composition) and Bartok (piano). He was increasingly exposed to the repression of Miklós Horthy's fascist, anti-Jewish regime. He settled in the Netherlands at the invitation of his friend and violinist Zoltán Székely. As a stateless Jew, however, he once again had to fear deportation and extermination in Holland and was unable to perform in public during the Nazi occupation. It was only after the Second World War that he was granted Dutch citizenship in 1948 and was finally able to lead a free musical life as a pianist and composer. He became one of Holland's leading contemporary composers. In 1989, at the age of 85, he died in a tragic fire accident in an old people's home. Since his escape from Hungary, he remained in contact with Bartok, Kodaly and the Hungarian music scene, but as a composer he was also influenced by Debussy, Ravel and neoclassicism. For a long time he was one of the most frequently performed composers in Holland, but the development of music in the post-war period increasingly made him one of the many forgotten composers. Only recently has the quality of his music been rediscovered.

 

The oeuvre of this "Hungarian Dutchman" comprises more than 100 works. Frid's son, Arthur Frid, commented on the style of Géza Frid's diverse compositions: he had "a pronounced rhythmic sense", he often used contrasts and possessed "a melodic imagination that is firmly rooted in the music and folklore of his homeland".

One of his most successful works was the Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra, composed in 1952. Everything is determined by the two: two violins, two movements with an introduction, each with two themes, based on two musical traditions, the Dutch and the Hungarian-Romanian, and yet the work has an astonishing unity. After the premiere, the Algemeen Handelsblad wrote: The concerto is 'a composition that finds its way to the listener's heart thanks to its simple structure and accessible themes.' One could add: Like some of Ravel's pieces, it combines musical modernity with rhythmically captivating directness.

A concerto for 3 identical instruments offers extraordinary compositional challenges. If in a double concerto a phrase of one instrument can be repeated by the other without further ado, repeating it three times could become quite boring. Exactly the opposite was the result in Frid's music, whose rhythmic energy is captivating without missing the opportunity of a special sound clyric of three violins merging into one another.
In 1969 Frid wrote his Concerto for three violins and orchestra, opus 78, for Emmy Verhey and the brothers Christiaan and Dick Bor: 'Unique in the literature of violin concertos', as Wouter Paap wrote in Mens & Melodie, April 1970.

More about the violin concertos by Géza Frid cf.:
https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/e-4/frid/

[Cato]

Géza Frid left Hungary for good in 1929, where he had received his musical training from his teachers Kodaly (composition) and Bartok (piano). He was increasingly exposed to the repression of Miklós Horthy's fascist, anti-Jewish regime. He settled in the Netherlands at the invitation of his friend and violinist Zoltán Székely. As a stateless Jew, however, he once again had to fear deportation and extermination in Holland and was unable to perform in public during the Nazi occupation. It was only after the Second World War that he was granted Dutch citizenship in 1948 and was finally able to lead a free musical life as a pianist and composer. He became one of Holland's leading contemporary composers. In 1989, at the age of 85, he died in a tragic fire accident in an old people's home. Since his escape from Hungary, he remained in contact with Bartok, Kodaly and the Hungarian music scene, but as a composer he was also influenced by Debussy, Ravel and neoclassicism. For a long time he was one of the most frequently performed composers in Holland, but the development of music in the post-war period increasingly made him one of the many forgotten composers. Only recently has the quality of his music been rediscovered.

 

The oeuvre of this "Hungarian Dutchman" comprises more than 100 works. Frid's son, Arthur Frid, commented on the style of Géza Frid's diverse compositions: he had "a pronounced rhythmic sense", he often used contrasts and possessed "a melodic imagination that is firmly rooted in the music and folklore of his homeland".

One of his most successful works was the Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra, composed in 1952. Everything is determined by the two: two violins, two movements with an introduction, each with two themes, based on two musical traditions, the Dutch and the Hungarian-Romanian, and yet the work has an astonishing unity. After the premiere, the Algemeen Handelsblad wrote: The concerto is 'a composition that finds its way to the listener's heart thanks to its simple structure and accessible themes.' One could add: Like some of Ravel's pieces, it combines musical modernity with rhythmically captivating directness.

A concerto for 3 identical instruments offers extraordinary compositional challenges. If in a double concerto a phrase of one instrument can be repeated by the other without further ado, repeating it three times could become quite boring. Exactly the opposite was the result in Frid's music, whose rhythmic energy is captivating without missing the opportunity of a special sound clyric of three violins merging into one another.
In 1969 Frid wrote his Concerto for three violins and orchestra, opus 78, for Emmy Verhey and the brothers Christiaan and Dick Bor: 'Unique in the literature of violin concertos', as Wouter Paap wrote in Mens & Melodie, April 1970.

More about the violin concertos by Géza Frid cf.:
https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/e-4/frid/

Many thanks for the information!  So many composers "forgotten" because of the deadly oppression of totalitarian systems in the last century!


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