Víz-szín-tér

Excerpt from an Interview in: Uptodate 2-2019, p. 33.

Frank Reinisch (FR): The new piece for the Stuttgart State Orchestra and its new principal conductor Cornelius Meister is the first large-scale orchestral work since your great success with Ez-tér, the SWR Symphony Orchestra’s prizewinner for the best orchestral work at the Donaueschin- gen Festival in 2017. How strong an im- pact does such a powerful predecessor have on the new project, or can you get away from it in your new work without any problem?

Márton Illés (MI): A project premiere un- dergone and experienced always brings along with it new energy and inspiration, but also new tasks for future works. I have a language that is constantly chang- ing and evolving. Not from one day to the next, most certainly not from one piece to the next, but over the years. Although the individual works are self-sufficient, they are not isolated entities with closed “one-way concepts,” but indispensable evolutionary phases of a long-term transformation pro- cess. In this respect, one work without the existence of the others is unimaginable, and the contents of the individual works are in lively correspondence with each other.

FR: What else can you tell us today about the new orchestral piece?

MI: Four pieces titled Drei Aquarelle [Three Watercolours], scored for smaller solo and chamber ensembles, have been composed. Unlike the “larger” cycle Rajzok (Drawings), the textures of the Aquarelle are more transparent, filigreed, somewhat more fine- ly crocheted overall, with more lyrical and formal freedom. Unlike the Drei Aquarelle, the ensemble pieces recently performed in Paris, the just composed work Víz-szín- tér (Hungarian and untranslatable: Water- colour Space/Water Scene) is the most streamlined of all my orchestral composi- tions. This piece will most likely be the last, crowning Aquarell stage.