Peter Eötvös

About Peter Eötvös

For me, composition consists of the enchantment of the audience through sound... I am interested in the technique which allows me to transform the unbelievable into sounds. This is exactly what is required in opera. (Peter Eötvös)

Peter Eötvös was born on 2 January 1944 in Székelyudvarhely (Transylvania). At the age of 14, Zoltán Kodály admitted him to his composition class at the Music Academy in Budapest. In 1966, a scholarship permitted him to relocate to the Federal Republic of Germany where he sought contact with the musical avant-garde in Cologne. He subsequently performed in concerts with the Stockhausen Ensemble (1968-1976) and was employed as sound engineer in the West German Radio electronic studio in Cologne. At the invitation of Pierre Boulez, Eötvös conducted the opening concert of the IRCAM in Paris 1978 and was subsequently appointed as musical director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain. He gave his debut at the London PROMS in 1980 and conducted the first performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s opera “Donnerstag aus Licht” the following year at the Scala in Milan. Eötvös was appointed as principal guest conductor of a number of international orchestras: the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart and, since 2009, also the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna. With the foundation of the International Peter Eötvös Institute for Young Conductors and Composers, Eötvös created a platform for the transfer of acquired knowledge and experience to the next generation. He taught at the Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe from 1992, took up an appointment as professor at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and subsequently returned to Karlsruhe in 2002 for a further five years.

Eötvös views music as an intensive form of communication between composer, performer and the audience. His ability of creating unusual tonal worlds is particularly displayed in his orchestral works, for example in zeroPoints, composed in 1999 in homage to Pierre Boulez. The title of the work is a reference to the historical “zero hour” in electronic music, although the integrated sound effects are in fact produced exclusively on orchestral instruments. The works Jet Stream for trumpet and orchestra (2002) and Seven for solo violin and orchestra (2006/2007) both feature a solo instrument as the focus of action. The composition CAP-KO (2005) which is dedicated to Béla Bartók develops a totally new form of piano concerto. The work exists in three different versions: a concerto with orchestra for one solo pianist who alternates between an acoustic grand piano and electronic keyboard, as a double concerto for two acoustic solo pianos with orchestral accompaniment and as an ensemble work for two pianos, sampler and percussion (Sonata per sei). In the percussion concerto Speaking Drums (2012/2013) Eötvös takes up the combination of speaking and drumming from Indian percussion music. He uses poems by his fellow countryman Sandor Weöres and the Indian poet Jayadeva from the 12th/13th century. In his second violin concerto DoReMi (2013) Eötvös reflects on how the complexity of the world stems from small simple components. The title refers both to the first three tones of our tonal system and to the performer of the world premiere, Midori. Alle vittime senza nome for orchestra (2016) is dedicated to the victims of the European refugee crises who drowned in the Mediterranian Sea. His third violin concerto Alhambra is manifoldy inspired by the fabulous Mooorish fortress in Andalusia, Spain.

Eötvös can be counted among the most successful operatic composers of our time. The libretto of the chamber opera Radames (1975/1997) originated from a textual concept by the composer, whereas later opera projects are based on master works of world literature. In 2002, Le Balcon, based on the play by Jean Genet was premiered at the Festival in Aix-en-Provence. Angels in America (2004) is based on the cult play by Tony Kushner which has been regarded as a key text in American literature since the 1990s. The opera Love and Other Demons, originating from a novel by the Nobel prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, transports us into the world of Columbia in the 18th century with its superstition, desire and religious obsession and was premiered to great acclaim at the 2008 Glyndebourne Festival. In 2010, Die Tragödie des Teufels was premiered at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. Paradise reloaded (Lilith) (2013) continues the subject matter of the last opera in a new way: Lilith, a strong and self-determined woman, is juxtaposed to kindhearted and motherly Eva. The subject matter of Der Goldene Drache (2014), however, is decidedly political again: globalization and migration policy. The piece, which Eötvös sees as music theatre, not as an opera, is based on the play of the same name by Roland Schimmelpfennig and was commissioned for the Ensemble Modern and the Oper Frankfurt. Senza sangue (2015) was written by Eötvös for the concert premiere in May 2015 with the New York Philharmonic at the ACHT BRÜCKEN Festival in Cologne. A year later, the first scenic Performance was staged at the Festival d'Avignon. Based on Alessandro Bariccio's novella of the same name, the work is about two people seeing each other again while being connected with each other as victim and offender for their whole lives. Sleepless, based on the award-winning novel "Trilogy" by Norwegian playwright and Nobel Prize winner Jon Fosse, premiered at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin in December 2021. His most recent opera, Valuska, based on the novel "Melancholy of Resistance" by László Krasznahorkai, premiered in Budapest in 2023.

Eötvös has received numerous international honours and awards including the Hungarian Bartók Prize (1997), the Christoph und Stephan Kaske Prize (2000), the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award (2002) and the prize SACD Palmarès in the category "Prix Musique" (2002). Eötvös has been a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, the Hungarian Academy of Letters and Arts (Széchenyi Iroldami és Művészeti Akadémia), the Saxon Academy of the Arts in Dresden and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music since 2000. He was also awarded the title of Commandeur de l`Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003) and 2004 the Cannes Classical Award in the category "Best Living Composer" at the MIDEM. He received the Frankfurt Music Prize in 2007 and the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale in 2011, the International Classical Music Award 2014 for his CD recording of violin concertos by Bartók and Ligeti as well as of his own concerto Seven, and in 2015, the Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen. In 2018 Eötvös was awarded the Goethe Medal of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 2021 he received the Frontiers of Knowledge Award of the BBVA Foundation.

Further works by Peter Eötvös are published with:

• Editio Musica Budapest
• Durand - Salabert - Eschig
• Ricordi