László Vidovszky's six-decade career as a composer includes almost 200 compositions, many genres and even more groundbreaking ideas, and is still growing. Schroeder's Death, 405, Narcissus and Echo are emblematic pieces of experimental music that appeared in Hungary in the 70s and 80s. And his later works - the 12 Duos, the Zwölf Streichquartette, Reverb and Promenade - are evidence of how the patterns built into his own inventions in the 70s became the basic elements of his own compositional style, now polished to classical purity.

We salute László Vidovszky on his 80th birthday with the recording of the 4th movement of Promenade composed for chamber ensemble. The Ligeti Ensemble is conducted by András Keller. (BMC Records 294)

The Canadian Bozzini String Quartet presented Hungarian chamber music to the Montréal audience at three concerts in early April. Most of the works have been presented as first performances in Canada. Besides one work of older masters, György Ligeti and György Kurtág (… pas à pas – nulle part…), respectively, László Vidovszky (12 String Quartets) and Gyula Csapó each had a string quartet, and the last night’s program included three works by Zoltán Jeney.

Péter Eötvös celebrated his 70th birthday on 2 January while László Vidovszky will be 70 on 25 February. The careers of the two composers are connected at several points, given their coinciding years of studies and the beginning of their careers, and also their joint work in the Budapest New Music Studio, their friendship and mutual friends. 

The concert in the Budapest Music Center on 30 March features Shadows (1996) by Péter Eötvös, composed for flute and chamber ensemble, and Reverb (2011) by László Vidovszky, written for piano and string quartet. The programme will also include the Hungarian premieres of two works (Stockhausen: Schlagtrio and Messiaen: Un vitrail et des oiseaux) whose composers played an important part at the start of their careers. The UMZE Ensemble is conducted by Zoltán Rácz.

PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD and KLANGFORUM WIEN perform László Vidovszky's Reverb on 27 August in the program of Kunstfest Weimar. The work for piano and string quartet was comissioned as a part of the project „Visions" - a hommage to Franz Liszt.

Celebrating Liszt's 200th birthday Kunstfest Weimar comissioned seven new compositions by composers representing the seven most important countries in Liszt's life and work: Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Austria and Russia.