“I am driven by an irrepressible urge”

Since March, Judit Varga has been head of department at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she has taught since 2013 and is still the youngest member of the teaching staff. A month before her appointment, Universal Edition, one of the most prestigious music publishers, signed a contract with her. Her standing is reflected not only in her numerous awards but also in the fact that she composes exclusively on commission. Variety is essential to her: alongside contemporary concert works, she writes music for films, theatre and multimedia productions.

PRAE.HU: You are both a pianist and a composer. How do these two roles relate to one another in your artistic work?

In recent years, playing the piano has taken quite a back seat to composing; I am no longer as active as a pianist. My focus has shifted: I mainly compose, teach and do management work. What has remained is that my approach to composing is very much centred on the piano, and if anything needs to be played or recorded, I can do it easily.

PRAE.HU: People often emphasise how much you have achieved as a woman in a male-dominated society and profession. What do you make of that?

I have always found this distinction strange, because my gender has no bearing on how I work. The music I write is not one way or another because I am a woman, and I do not see such a connection in my colleagues’ work either. It is true that our social and professional environment is very male-centred. If you want to succeed as a woman, there are two things you definitely have to reckon with. One is that you will work with a great many men and very few women, and you need to know how to handle that. The other is that people will constantly point out that you are a woman, as if you belonged to an entirely different category. Being continually confronted with this encourages me to do my best, but it also bothers me enormously and makes my work harder. In this respect, Vienna is easier than Hungary.

If we want to put women on an equal footing with men, we have to change centuries of attitudes and culture—not only for the sake of equality, but ultimately to enrich society and the profession as well. Some countries began this conscious effort earlier and are making greater strides than Hungary. Vienna is an extremely positive example, both in its concert life and at the university where I work. Over the past decades, the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna has made it one of its main aims to support gender diversity in training future musicians and providing professional opportunities, giving the next generation an equal start in their careers. Teachers are treated equally, regardless of gender. Being a woman puts me at neither a disadvantage nor an advantage, so I do not have to feel any pressure because of it.

PRAE.HU: You have lived mainly in Vienna for years. Does your choice of where to live matter to your artistic work?

It does not, especially now, during the pandemic. My physical location makes almost no difference, because I do most of my work alone in my studio. Most of the processes involving other people had already moved online before the pandemic, as our projects bring together artists from an increasing number of countries and continents. I write a lot of film music, for example, although 90 per cent of those films are not made in Vienna, and we do not record the music there either. Sometimes I travel to the location, but the process generally works without me being there. What really matters is an exciting, creative setting and an environment rich in impressions, because that inevitably affects an artist’s work. But I think we can create that for ourselves if necessary. Of course, perhaps living in one of the strongholds of European culture makes me take what the city gives me for granted: I cannot really judge what I would lose if I moved away from Vienna.

PRAE.HU: Is there anything you regard as success in composing?

The word ‘success’, the description ‘successful’, always comes from outside, but it does not necessarily correspond to how you feel on the inside. Awards, commissions and recognition from audiences are external responses that you can count as successes. But we do not have to think of such big things straight away: I think being able to make a living from what you do is already a success. The inner feeling is at least as important, though I would call it satisfaction rather than success. It is determined by quite different criteria from external recognition: for me, it is a success if I can write a piece that I think is good. When I compose, I always set myself challenges; I find musical problems that I want to solve in the piece. The process is quite long and full of ups and downs. In the best case, the resulting work achieves what I had intended, or I discover another good solution. In the worst case, I fail—but even then there is a great deal to learn, and that helps me grow.

PRAE.HU: Do you care how people respond to a piece of yours? Is that something you consider while composing?

Yes, I watch the audience’s reactions at concerts too. That probably stems in part from having spent so much time on stage as a pianist: I am used to immediate feedback and to being constantly aware of the audience. Whenever I compose, the future audience is in my mind, whatever the piece. Not as something to cater to; I simply like to think about what my music might stir in them. A piece comes to life not only on stage: it also begins a new life in the minds of its listeners. I should add, though, that the core of composing is independent of the audience. Someone who writes music has goals and is committed to what they want to achieve in their works. I am driven by an irrepressible urge to write because I have something to say, and this urge—indeed, this sense of purpose—is stronger than anything else.

PRAE.HU: Have you seen good approaches or initiatives abroad that help contemporary composers become more established in concert life and in the public’s awareness?

In Germany, for example, there is a very strong tradition of what is known as Musikvermittlung—music education and outreach. They organise educational programmes around contemporary music, taking pieces into schools and exploring them through various teaching methods with the students actively involved. A music class might, for example, work on a project for an entire semester. The students get to know a few contemporary composers and their careers so far, discuss what writing music meant in the past and what it means today, follow the creation of new pieces, and take on creative tasks. At the end of the semester, they go to a concert featuring those composers’ works. That is how they nurture what they hope will be the audiences of the future.

Here in Vienna, the tradition that began with Wien Modern is still thriving: for a month, contemporary works are performed at between two and ten concerts a day, in large halls, before a substantial regular audience. But such a tradition cannot be built overnight; in Hungary, it would take an enormous amount of active effort. Among other examples, I think what the Átlátszó Hang New Music Festival has achieved over the past seven years is absolutely worth following. The greatest danger facing contemporary music is that it turns in on itself. If the composers, musicians and audience at a concert all know one another, something is seriously wrong.

In Vienna, people try various ways of opening up this closed circle. Informal conversations, for instance, are very popular. Most recently, we gave concerts in Berlin and Hamburg as part of the Ohrknacker series, in which just one piece of around twenty minutes is performed—very little music for an entire concert. After the first performance, the composer and musicians talk about the work and the audience can ask questions. This lasts about forty minutes, and then everyone can hear the piece again, this time with more informed ears. People love it, but it cannot be done with an audience larger than thirty to fifty, because it needs a more intimate, direct atmosphere.

PRAE.HU: How important do you think formal education is in training composers today?

In theory, anyone with internet access and a minimal studio setup now has everything they need to learn the profession. But teaching yourself has its pitfalls too. With everything available online, it is even harder to decide which direction to take and what to concentrate on—you need a map. I think the most important task of an educational institution is to provide that kind of mentoring. While certain technical foundations have to be taught, composition training is highly individual. Teachers have to pay attention not only to students’ professional progress but also to their personal development, which requires a close relationship of trust, at any age. We also need educational institutions because the networks they can give young people access to improve their prospects. Those who teach themselves have to build all those connections on their own as well. That is not impossible, but it is much harder.

To this day, I believe I found the approach that suited me best as a student: I consistently followed a particular path while also looking in many other directions. I studied at several universities, took advantage of an Erasmus scholarship, attended masterclasses and changed teachers when I felt I needed to. I was able to learn from many people, in many countries, in different settings and through different approaches, but primarily within universities.

PRAE.HU: What role do awards play in the development of a composer’s career?

They certainly provide positive feedback and can bring commissions or other work. They make your name better known and lend prestige to your CV. But they cannot be taken as an absolute measure of the quality of someone’s artistic work. There are excellent composers who simply are not the competitive type. Not winning does not mean that someone’s work is poor. Awards are therefore not clear-cut indicators, and we should not overvalue them. Especially since there are now so many different competitions and prizes, and none of them instantly establishes a young person’s career.

PRAE.HU: Alongside contemporary classical music, you do a great deal of composing for film and theatre. What led you in that direction?

Chance. While studying in Vienna, I had an opportunity to try it. I was interested, so I gave it a go and really enjoyed how refreshingly different it was. In those classes, we were still working with music, but with a completely different attitude: we started taking ourselves a little less seriously. The academic setting and standards remained the same, yet I found this field much more relaxed and freer, and it broadened my horizons. A composer working in this field has to be able to write in different styles, for images and for the stage, often using software, so I acquired many additional skills. I had already worked with theatres and filmmakers on a small scale, but after that, major international projects began to come my way too. For me, they are a form of active recreation. Because these different kinds of work engage entirely different sides of my mind, I plan my seasons to include as much variety as possible; each kind of task provides a refreshing change from the others.

PRAE.HU: What goals would you still like to achieve?

My main aim is to hold on to my slightly naïve, childlike enthusiasm for music and composing. As long as I can wake up in the morning and hardly wait to write down the idea that came to me during the night, I am on the right track. As long as I love teaching and can believe that what I do matters and adds something to people’s lives, I am on the right track. If that feeling, that enthusiasm, were to disappear one day, I would have to stop it all and start doing something completely new…