In the Concert Halls of Budapest. Selected music reviews, 1959–1975

It was already more than three decades ago that András Pernye (1928–1980) left us, but his figure is still surrounded by the legends told by his one-time disciples at the Academy of Music and even the audience not so well-versed in music can remember him as a member of the panel of judges in the Ki mit tud? [Who knows what?] talent show. To his most significant musicology works on topics like Giacomo Puccini (1959, 1988), Jazz (1964, 2007), Alban Berg (1967) and Performing art and common music language (1974) published in his lifetime, two selections of his short writings were added by János Breuer under the titles Publicity (1981) and In the light of half a millennium (1988) after his death.

However, the music reviews that made Pernye famous (or rather notorious) have not been published as a collection so far, although it is precisely these that truly reveal his remarkable personality. The extremely popular ‘Pernyus’ as he was nicknamed by his admirers, had a free and almost speech-like written style, a vast cultural knowledge, a brilliant associative talent and an intellectual attitude to praise real quality with genuine respect and to address superficial and therefore in his eyes immoral performances with poignant sarcasm. The highlight of his work as a reviewer was the one and a half decade he spent at Magyar Nemzet as a „concert reviewer” as he called himself. His column titled  A week in the concert halls of Budapest started in 1959 and was then weekly published until the end of the 1973-74 concert season. He also reviewed regularly the most significant guest performances in Budapest.

The editor of the present volume Balázs Mikusi selected the best pieces of Pernye’s legacy in terms of literary value which fortunately coincides with the reviews of the most excellent performers still remembered today. It seems like outstanding concerts inspired Pernye to write reviews of outstanding quality himself to share his experience more convincingly. This book, therefore, is not only a chronicle of the concert hall life of Budapest in the 1960s and 1970s, but also an amazing series of portraits of significant 20^th century music performers.