Peter Eötvös

A leading voice in the Hungarian avant-garde, Peter Eötvös saw his works, especially in the operatic genre, performed internationally. He was also a conductor who performed much new music of his own and by other composers. Eötvös was born on January 2, 1944, in Székelyudvarhely, Hungary (now Odorheiv Secviesc, Romania). The family was forced to move at the end of World War II, but he always regarded himself as having Transylvanian roots. His mother was a pianist who exposed her son to Hungarian music, including that of Bartók. Eötvös studied several instruments as a child, and by 11, he had written a prizewinning cantata. György Ligeti recommended him for admission to the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he studied with János Viski. For several years, Eötvös worked as director of the Budapest Comedy Theater and wrote utilitarian music such as film scores. He became more immersed in avant-garde styles when he earned a German Academic Exchange Service Scholarship and headed for the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne as a conducting student from 1966 to 1968. At the end of that period, he met German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, in whose Stockhausen Ensemble he participated through much of the 1970s. Eötvös' first major compositions, such as Harakiri (1973, based on the life of novelist Yukio Mishima) for narrator and ensemble, appeared during this period, and he began to integrate contemporary electronics into his music. Eötvös also built a reputation as a composer. He conducted the opening concert of avant-garde composer Pierre Boulez's IRCAM ensemble in Paris in 1978. He appeared as a conductor at the BBC Proms in London in 1980 and went on to serve as principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony from 1985 to 1988, guest conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra from 1992 to 1995, and chief conductor of the Hilversum Symphony in the Netherlands from 1994 to 2005. In 1993, he made his recording debut as a conductor, leading the Ensemble Modern on an album of song cycles by György Kurtág. Large works continued to flow from Eötvös' pen, including zeroPoints for orchestra, which was premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra under conductor Boulez, and several operas, including Le Balcon (2002) and Angels in America (2004), the latter based on a six-hour play by writer Tony Kushner. He conducted music of his own on recordings, as on a 2000 BIS release of his Chinese Opera and other works with the Klangforum Wien. His works fused serialist techniques with an accessible dramatic sense. Eötvös remained active into senior citizenship, issuing several new operas in the 2010s, including Der goldene Drache ("The Golden Dragon," 2014) and Senza sangue (2015). Eötvös was active as an educator, teaching at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe and the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. He died in Budapest on March 24, 2024. As of the mid-2020s, more than 65 of his compositions had been recorded. ~ James Manheim, Rovi