Peter Eötvös has remained independent with regard to the various aesthetic schools: He has made his own way above the French and German schools – in fact above every imaginable school. He is a very dramatic composer, with strong references to literature and theatre, and he also takes up issues far removed from the musical world. His Atlantis is based on a myth that reflects our whole civilisation, the whole crisis that we see so clearly today when world affairs are so unstable. He wants to work with extra-musical issues, while at the same time being a musical trend-setter.

Eötvös is prepared to use many different stylistic means in order to achieve his aims. I think that he moves with a refreshing ease between them, not by using quotations or meta-styles, but by more or less turning them into a personal style of his own. He does this in his own rather pure and uncluttered way and that appeals to me. He communicates directly with his music, and doesn't shred everything together in a speculative way.

Eötvös is refreshingly non-academic in his own music, in which he wanders at will between simple textures and advanced processes. He is firmly rooted in the Hungarian music tradition, together with Kurtág, Kodály and Bartók. They all row in the direction of home, they all have a base. Peter Eötvös started out as a composer. It was Kodály who discovered his talent and took him to the Budapest Academy of Music.

We know him best as a conductor, but that came later. As a composer he has been active in many different fields and I think that this is significant; with electro-acoustic music in Cologne and as Artistic Director of Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, and he moves completely freely between them. I think it is marvellous that he can take that freedom with him.

I once played Boulez's Pli selon pli with Eötvös as conductor. First we worked a whole week with an assistant conductor, and it was terribly difficult, but when Eötvös came everything fell naturally into place. He's not the kind of conductor that trips the musicians up, instead he invites us all to work together. He works with a simple, lucid musical interpretation, even in such advanced works as Pli selon pli. I think that his conducting technique reflects what you find in his music: There is a refreshing simplicity -there too, as well as extreme clarity.

Ivo Nilsson (Photo: Marco Borggreve)

This text is taken from the Ricordi brochure on Peter Eötvös. You can download it right here.