The Art of the Epistle: Sándor Veress to János Demény from the City of Bears

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The composer Sándor Veress, Kodály`s successor as Professor of Composition at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, left Hungary in 1949 and settled in Bern, Switzerland, where he was active for the next 40 years as a highly influential teacher and a successful composer. His closest friend in Hungary was musicologist János Demény, who was responsible for collecting and publishing Bartók`s letters. The
correspondence between these two musicians covers many subjects from travels to family matters but it mainly revolves, not surprisingly, around music. The paper will illustrate how Veress sought to communicate the new insights and experiences gained in the West to his friend in Hungary. At the same time, it will pay tribute to letter-writing as a literary genre; Veress and Demény clearly enjoyed practicing this dying art-form.



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