I hope I am not being unjust to the memory of the composer András Mihály in saying that I believe he would now be largely forgotten if it were not for György Kurtág’s Hommage à Mihály András. Twelve Microludes for String Quartet, Op. 13 (1977/78), and several other homages. They include Kurtág’s highly regarded orchestral work Stele, Op. 33 (1994/2006), which is based on a piano piece in memory of the composer in the sixth volume of the piano series Játékok. Also, a few notes from Mihály’s early Cello Concerto helped Kurtág to find a fitting ending to Stele.

However, after World War II, András Mihály was a highly respected and influential figure in Hungarian musical life—perhaps not so much as a composer but as founder-conductor of the Budapest New Music Ensemble, which (in addition to programming music by contemporary Hungarian composers) presented to Hungarian audiences whatever was new and important in the world of contemporary music on an international scale. He was a peerless professor of chamber music at the Budapest Academy, a successful director of the State Opera House, and his television programs in which he talked about and conducted some of the pivotal compositions of the past century had some of the quality of Leonard Bernstein’s programs of a similar nature.

He was one of those Hungarian intellectuals who after the war engaged themselves in rebuilding cultural life in the country. He sincerely believed in the ideals of socialism and in the interests of its noble goals he was for a time ready to close his eyes to the malfunctioning of the system, indeed, to the crimes committed by the Stalinist puppet regime. Mihály was led by the idea that classical music should be brought to the people (the “masses” to use a term much in currency in the 1950s). That could only be achieved if new music being composed was simple and drew its inspiration from folk music. That is also why he wished to suppress Bartók’s abstract, “modern” works and restrict performances to the composer’s folk music arrangements. (Paradoxically enough, he referred in our interview to those very compositions as having been of particular significance in his development). The result was a plethora of pocket Kodály pieces produced in Hungary en masse.