He has only been officially studying classical composition at the Academy of Music for only a year, and he has already won prizes in several competitions with his pieces. You also get a lot of requests. In an interview, he talked about himself, his goals and his favorite music.
When he was in the second year of primary school, he was always bored in the afternoon. That’s why he started going to music school. He wanted to play the piano, but there was no room left, so he chose the violin. Since then, he has completed his piano studies. Now he has to write the first mass in the Lovar language, and he is putting together a symphonic orchestra for the classical music stage of Sziget. Twenty years old and a techno fan.
When did you start composing music?
I wrote it when I was eight years old, that work was still quite rudimentary then, mostly a compilation of other works. There was even a Szekeres Adrienn song in it, so it wasn’t serious at all… But I played it in my exam, and the teachers smiled and praised me.
When I was in the eighth grade in elementary school, we performed one of my plays at a friend’s graduation. It was a great success, although I think the piece was very bad, I wouldn’t listen to it today. The first major success was perhaps when we played one of my string quintes at a music camp. It wasn’t even a good piece, but it pretty much had my style, and many people congratulated it at the time. Then, when I was in fourth grade, there was a composition competition at the Conservatory, where I wrote a string quartet. Back then, no one knew I was a composer.
Everyone told me not to start, no one expected me to get a place. I ended up second.
The piece was played after that, the first violinist was Gyuszi Váradi from the Virtuozes. After that, I became more interested in composing and thought about how I could transition from violin to composing. Before that, I was only self-taught.
What attracted you so much to composing music?
What I like best is that if I write a piece at the age of, say, sixteen or seventeen, and it needs to be taken out when I’m sixty, I just take out the sheet music and give it to others who will learn it. This was not the case with the violin. I learned a difficult concert, which then, if you had to take it out three years later, you have to start all over again. But I also really like the fact that after I’ve written a piece, I listen to it from the audience, I don’t have anything to do with it anymore.
How does it feel to hear your own works at a concert?
I really don’t like hearing them back. In rehearsals, when he speaks for the first time, it feels really good, but after that I get increasingly bored with my piece. At the last concert, when I heard it, I couldn’t wait for it to end. Of course, not because of the musicians, but because of myself.
Did you do anything else besides music?
Yes, I am very interested in the financial profession. I also worked as a financial consultant for a narrow year. When I turned five, I had a lot of free time, I wanted to find a job. I liked that I could allocate my time here for myself. I completed a course and started working, but then I stopped last August. I realized that music is my path.
What kind of music do you listen to?
My favorite composer is Tchaikovsky, I’ve heard all his pieces at least once. But recently, I have also become very interested in the twentieth century, including Stravinsky, Bartók, Shostakovich, Ravel, but especially the Russians.
To be honest, I’m one of the biggest fans of techno music,
although many people cannot imagine this about me. I also went to the Kolorado Festival this year because of the techno music, but otherwise I listen to almost everything, including dubstep.
How do techno and classical music fit together?
In the old days, when I was studying, I mostly listened to classical music. Recently, I tend to listen to machine music, because classical music really engages my brain, and after a while I only pay attention to it. But not the other one.
How do you write a play?
The biggest inspiration is that I have to bring something to class. Tchaikovsky said that
inspiration does not like lazy people.
If the composer sits down and only deals with that, then after an hour or two, some kind of inspiration will definitely come. You have to wait for that, and it will all go on from there.
Recently, I’ve been doing it by putting my emotions into my tasks, but in the past it was just about something that happened to me, and I wrote a piece about it. I recently talked with teacher Gyula Fekete about how composers have to go through the process of starting to write a piece one night and not being inspired. Depression and nervousness come, and because of this, they will think all day about what they should write. One day he will focus on this, and then I can’t pay attention to anything else, I only think about this. And by the next evening, some new idea will come. Most of the time, this one day is always there.
How did your family accept that you went into music?
After a while, they accepted that I would become a musician, but that I would become a composer only recently. I think that the first place in the current Beethoven Composer Competition in Budavári convinced them, especially my father, that I would become a composer. You should know that my parents are not experts, but they always say that my play is good. Especially my mom used to say that she likes it a lot, but I think they only say that so as not to offend me, and they really don’t like it. My roommate once told me to turn off the music that was playing because he was very depressed. Then I told him it was my own piece.
What do you think your pieces are?
I always say that if you want to listen to happy music, don’t choose this. Most people know me as a cheerful person, but my music is depressing. All of my pieces are like this, I can mostly immerse myself in sad music.
What are you working on lately?
I have two more assignments for the summer. I have to write a piano piece for the Bartók Composer’s Competition, and I also have a request from the church, I have to write the first mass in Lovár. I have already received the lyrics, I will start this after the piano piece. Dávid Zsoldos, the managing director of Papageno, recently gave me the opportunity to put together a symphonic orchestra for the Sziget’s classical music stage. Last year I was invited to this band, the fact that I can now organize it is a very good feeling. But it also comes with a lot of work. We are preparing a Hungarian show, where Gyula Váradi and Tamás Kökeny will perform solo in a piece each. At the next concert, we will play the best-known and most popular classical pieces. I will also play at the concert, I really like playing the violin in a band, and the responsibility is also less. But maybe this will be the last, now I just want to deal with composing.
The original article is available at: https://www.szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu/kult/a-zene-az-en-utam-olah-patrik-gergo-zeneszerzo-meg-csak-20-eves-de-sorra-nyeri-a-dijakat/
The article can be downloaded: szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu_kult_a-zene-az-en-utam-olah-patrik-gergo-zeneszerzo-meg-csak-20-eves-de-sorra-nyeri-a-dijakat_
