On this episode of Exposition, we share Dr. Robert Gifford's conversation with Dr. Laszlo Marosi that was originally broadcast on KRCU's "Strike Up the Band" on March 19, 2025.
Dr. Marosi is an internationally recognized conductor and proponent of Hungarian band music. Gifford and Marosi discuss early bands in Hungary, some notable composers of Hungarian band music as well as Marosi's personal history with Hungarian military bands.
Gifford: This is Robert Gifford, your host for “Strike Up the Band.” We have opened our show with a 1783 march composed by Franz Josef Haydn. The actual title of the march, The Imperial and Royal 34th Hungarian Line Infantry, “Antal Esterhazy” Regiments March gives us some idea of the function of early bands in Hungary. It gives me great pleasure to introduce my colleague and longtime friend, Dr./Maestro Laszlo Marosi. It's such a treat to have you here, Laszlo. And it's not that you haven't been on television and radio a lot in your life or recordings, but it's a great honor to have you join our show.
I'd like to begin by asking you, since we're basically talking about Hungarian band music and the history of it, what is the significance of this first march that we listened to?
Marosi: Yes, and first, thank you very much for the possibility. Thank you for inviting me and thank you for being willing to listen to my Hungarian accent. I hope it doesn't bother anyone. But then let's go back to the Haydn March that is very interesting. What is the significance in one sentence that after the Rákóczi March, which is the national march of Hungary, this was the next march in chronological order that was written for a wind band.
The story is very interesting because actually this march that was composed in 1783, it was published in 1794 by a German publisher, Heilbronn, who says that the composer is unknown. It is very interesting that he said the composer is unknown because Haydn was already hired to the Esterhazy court, and they moved in 1769 to Esterhaza, that is today called Fertut, that is where the infantry regiment was stationing. That specific 34th Infantry Regiment was stationing in Hoboken. The big Haydn researcher, he very clearly states that at that time when the regiment was there, they organized at that place several military parades and Haydn composed all the music for the ceremonies, for the parades. So it's very clear that Haydn was the composer, the only composer around, and the regiment got this march. So what is the significance that a world famous composer, whom everyone calls the father of the symphony, who was there, and we know his wind serenades also that he composed, and this march, after the Rakoczy March, is the next Hungarian march written for a Hungarian military band at that time more than assumably by him. This is the significance.
Gifford: Okay, thank you. For our listeners' benefit, I should mention that the recording that we have just heard, it's from a Hungaraton CD titled, “Marches from the Hungarian History, 18th to 19th Centuries.” The performing ensemble was the central band of the Hungarian Army with our guest as conductor. So, since we're mentioning military bands, and that's important, of course, to band history in almost every country. I know you have a personal history with Hungarian military bands. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Marosi: It is a very specific one because my parents were teachers and during communism teachers counted to be enemy of the society because in the previous period of the history of Hungarian society they belonged to the middle class and in the communist period it was not favored so they got very bad jobs, very poor payment and the children like my sister and myself we didn't have to much choices to get higher education. So we find that the music school and the military music high school that welcomed and they didn't check any background. They just wanted to have a 14 year old kid to come there and they will teach the kid for music to be a military band musician.
This is how I got involved with the military music. At age 14, I got involved into that school. And as I already played the piano for very long time, I double majored there, piano and trombone. And when I almost graduated, suddenly they were looking for newly trained young people volunteering to be military band conductors. So it was very clear that this is my chance and the army paid for everything. So I went there and I was super lucky that they hired the South Hungarian city page, opera and Philharmonic director, Tamás Breitner. So he was the very best conductor professor at that time in Hungary and the army paid him the prize that probably no other institute would have paid him. So I was very lucky to get that education. And when I was 22, I was already a conductor. I had a trombone and piano bachelor degree in performance too. And the central army band decided that they want me to go there as military band conductor. So this is how I got engaged with that. And I went there and I was looking for band music, original band music. And very few people were able to give me an answer because in the communist period everyone played marches talking about the red star, how shiny it is, and the Soviet marches and nothing Hungarian. I said, wait a second, I want to know about that. This is how the research started. And I find Dr. Karch, Dr. Paul Karch, who was in a military band, Piccolo player, between the two world wars. And now he was an economist doctor and he knew the resources and he directed me to those places in the big libraries in Budapest and we located these old pieces that on that CD that you were just mentioning we found and we just needed to re-orchestrate them for the military band of the current time in the early 80s.
Gifford: Wow. What an interesting experience, experiences. And of course, I think the people involved were very lucky when they picked you. They probably had no idea at the time, but this has worked out so well for your career. Let's go to another example that we have chosen. And this is Franz Liszt’s adaptation of the 1711 Rákóczi March recorded by Dr. Marosi and the Central Band of the Hungarian army. And before we play it, tell us a little bit, Lazi, why this is an important march or an important part of Hungarian band history.
Marosi: Basically because this is the very first march as we consider the march as one of the oldest band genre. Going back to the court of Louis XIV when he established the first permanent armies and the permanent armies had permanent wind bands too. And in Europe, the other royal courts just adopted the idea. In this case, the Hungarian and the Imperial, Royal, Monarchy time rulers adopted the idea to have permanent military units with permanent bands and the military bands composers were obligated, required to write marches for the bands. The Rákóczi March is a different story because in 1711 it was the the fight for freedom led by Rákóczi, who also owned the Tokaj Mountains that is famous for the Tokaj vine, is the same person. And he tried to break up with the Austrians in the monarchy. And that march, the Rákóczi March, originates from that period. At this moment, nobody's brave enough to point out who composed the original Rákóczi March because Rákóczi had their gypsy player, Mihai Barna, who played it with his gypsy band after the failed fight for freedom. When I was growing up in the music high school, we played the Rákóczi March under his name, that's the gypsy composer wrote it. And he was asked in an interview, are you the composer of the Rákóczi March? I was reading this article in the Széchényi Library and his answer was, no, I just heard it in the camp of Rákóczi. Okay, and lots of questions, heard from whom? But other musicologists says, no, it was developed during the decades after that and several people contributed. But another military band composer, conductor Reznyacek, Josef Reznyacek, he published the Rákóczi March under his name in Vienna later. So there are ideas that maybe he wrote it. We don't know who wrote it, but it became the National March of Hungary because of the political feature of the war, the fight. And there is no other instrumental music from the earlier period. We will talk about that issue later. But as a wind band, originally band music, there are considered to be the historic march of Hungary. Now how Liszt comes to the picture. It's a very interesting story because when Liszt, there was a young kid, everyone said this is too good to give education him in Hungary. Let's bring him to Paris where the best education he can get. He did, he studied, he learned, he went after when he got to the age to the Paris Conservatory and he played for them and they said, no, we don't accept you here. He was shocked. He said, wait a second, didn't I play good enough the piano for you? He said, no, there's nothing to do. You play the piano better than our professors, but we have a law that in the Paris Conservatory, only French citizens can study. Liszt was shocked because he thought he's French. His first language was French. He was growing up in Paris. So he asked him, am I not French? If I am not French, who I am? And they told him, you are Hungarian. This is when he learned that he's not French, but Hungarian. And this situation was driving him later to Hungary. And he was looking for the leader musicians and Franz Erkel, who was the composer who established the Hungarian opera, he met with him and Liszt asked him, help me to know what Hungarian music is. And Erkel played for him the Rákóczi March and several Csárdás. This is how Liszt got introduced to the Rákóczi March. And he wrote two versions of it, one for piano and also Hungarian Rhapsody 15 is also the Rákóczi March based on. And when Berlioz visited Budapest Liszt played him the Rákóczi March and Berlioz got crazy about that and he wrote his version of Rákóczi March into the Damnation of Faust. So this is the Liszt relation to the Hungarian music and the very first Hungarian instrumental music that is the wind music based Rákóczi March.
Gifford: Wow, what an interesting and intricate history that goes behind the music. So in a general sense, Lazi, what have been the functions of bands in Hungary?
Marosi: Well, the same as in other places in the monarchy, mainly the military bands were the most important wind bands. There were some village bands also with folk features, playing folk dances, musicians coming from the Czech territory of the monarchy, bringing with them the brass instruments and playing polkas in villages.
Also the Hungarian Germans, they say that Ungarn-Deutsche people, also feature the wind groups, small wind ensembles, but the wind band was the military band. And after the French Revolution, when the main idea was to bring music to the public and not only to the aristocrats, and when the clarinet was invented as symbol of freedom and democracy, in Hungary, the military bands also started to play public concerts, which means transcriptions of the orchestra repertoire. So if you were rich enough, on Saturday evening, you could buy a ticket to the concert hall and listen to a nice orchestra concert. And what was the good part of it? That next day, Sunday morning, the military band outside for free for everyone played a public concert from the same repertoire transcribed for wind band. So this was the main function at that time of the wind band in Hungary.
Gifford: Well, you've told us a little bit about your own history with the military bands, your growth there. What has led you, other than, I guess, that interest, but what has led you and allowed you to become recognized as one of the most productive and respected conductors in the world?
Marosi: Well, it goes back to the same school that I mentioned earlier, because our band director was the favorite bass-drummer, Brichástrous. And he himself, Ernő Kályl was the name, he started to make some very special orchestrations from opera excerpts and contemporary music too. And because he was member of the Hungarian Freshly Established Band Association, whose main goal was to commission new pieces, he was bringing us the freshest, the new wind band music. And I got in big love with that. And when I got the job at the Central Army Band, said, why do we play only military marches and transcriptions as orchestra music? Why don't we follow the idea to invite the leader composers to write new music and play those? And let's catch up with the symphony orchestras and let's play the regional music. And this trend, this idea, these connections were leading me to the number one composers of the country. And I was asking them to write new music. And I premiered it and the Hungarian radio was open for that. So we could record those pieces. And Hungaraton, the CD company, was also open. As you mentioned, that there is the Historica Marches CD, the Liszt Marches when the 100th anniversary was the death of Liszt in 1986. We made the recording of the Liszt marches and I could come up with a repertoire that several different directions already started in Hungary, but having the number one professional band, the Central Army Band that was the biggest one, having saxophones also in the band. Other bands didn't have saxophones at that time and we could inspire composers and how we got connected to WASBE through the Hungarian publishing company, Editi Müzika, Balint, Varga Balint, was the manager there, he just helped to get connected to the band world outside of the communist block. And I also wanted to do orchestra because what I really didn't like, you asked me about the band function that people put it band down, telling, band is only band. And they started to talk about me too. Yeah, he's a good conductor, but he's only a band conductor. And I didn't like that. So I said, I want to show if a conductor knows what he's doing, can learn the score, you can do whatever instruments included in the score. So in the next 15 years, I worked with orchestras and all the Beethoven symphonies or Mahler symphonies everything that was written, a very famous repertoire during the 18th, 19th century orchestra and lots of contemporary music too, I did. So this is how I got connected to all the continents.
Gifford: Yes. And our listeners will notice that I probably will mention this too. And Lazi has a WASBE (World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles) and that's an international organization of conductors, mostly wind conductors that meet every couple of years in different parts. They were, think the last one was in Taiwan, Korea. I think the South Korea was the last meeting.
It is a distinct honor to have as our guest this week, an internationally respected conductor and expert on wind band music, Dr. Laszlo Marosi. We have been listening to and discussing Hungarian wind band music composed by such musical giants as Haydn and Liszt and the importance of their works on the development of band music in Hungary.
The next work that I would like to discuss is Ferenc Farkas’ modern treatment of 16th century Hungarian folk music. So how does this next piece we're jumping ahead many years, but how does this next piece fit into wind band music, the history of and function of in Hungary?
Marosi: Well, it's a very interesting situation because Ferenc Farkas was the composer professor in the Liszt Academy for long decades. The famous Hungarian composers Ligeti, Kurtág, they're both his students. They all learned about composition from him and he was a Kodály colleague. They worked together and he came up with the idea to use very ancient, very old Hungarian melodies as foundations of the works and he located in old codexes and religious Catholic written materials from the church and he selected melodies, ideas, and he put it together more complex musical genre with accompaniment of a more contemporary harmonic support and counter melody and form. And what is interesting that he's most famous of those works are the early Hungarian dances and the Contrafacta Hungarica that the latest one based on melodies from 1520 to 1598. So sixteen century melodies he adopted to a piece, to an instrumental work that is very interesting and another very interesting feature of it that he himself orchestrated that suites, collections then works to several different kind of instrumental groups. You can find it for string quartet, you can find it for woodwind quintet. You can find it for symphony orchestra. And his son said, hey, in that case, why don't we have a wind band version of the same piece? His father was already dead when the idea came up with, but his son, a flutist from Switzerland, he said, wait a second, we have to do that for wind band too, because wind band is so good, so important, so high quality performing instrument and assembly in the 20th century that he commissioned the composers and the arrangers to make a wind band version of the same music. And he said, my father would be extremely happy with that. I know. And this is how we got in the second half of the 20th century, a 16th century melody based. I could say that wind band music, because at that time there were those wandering minstrels who were bringing their instruments, their melodies, their ideas from one aristocratic court to another one, depending who gave them food, who gave them shelter, who paid them, and they stayed there and they played and learned from each other. So the ensembles were always changing. The instrumental grouping was totally different all the time, but the majority of those instruments were wind instruments. So I can say these are wind music from the 16th century and the majority of the melodies are Hungarian originally, but we can see Hungarian performed European melodies are also included, that they were written on those codexes that he used. And I thought we have to talk about that because if we see the history of Hungarian wind band, probably these pieces are the oldest wind band pieces that are not written for the today's wind band, but in the 16th century's wind groups, whatever they had. This is how the piece got involved with this.
Gifford: Well, it's a delightful piece. In fact, I programmed it a few weeks ago and several people said, you know, I, that piece I'd never heard before. That was the best piece on the show, which surprised me cause it was something they would not know or never have heard.
Now we're going to talk about another composer now, Laszlo, and I forgot to ask you about the pronunciation on this -- this gentleman, Josef, I think he's often in Western countries named Pesci, but the last name is more Hungarian. Could you pronounce that for me?
Marosi: Yes, you were very, close. That is very funny because when he was born, he was not called as Pesci. He was born in the Czech Republic and his original name was Psychistal and he was born in Biskupice in the Czech Republic. During the monarchy, he got involved with several military groups. And actually it's very interesting because his composition professor was Janacek and he played the double bass in the Strauss Orchestra in Vienna and also he played in several other groups and when he got involved with the military as military band conductor he was oriented to a Hungarian unit of the monarchy, Hungarian-Austrian monarchy regiment. And this is how he got to Hungary. And in Hungary, he married to a Hungarian woman. And this was the period between the two world wars when the political leaders realized that there are no Hungarian names in Hungary. Everyone has different nationalities. So they called, I say in English, hungarization or majorization of the period and this is when his name Psychistal, the Czech name, was changed for Pesči. And this is how we know Josef Pesči because when he retired from the army as a major, he went to the Hungarian National Railways Company and he established the wind bands, choirs, and symphony orchestra. And that symphony orchestra that he established, it's still functioning -- is still functioning and after his death his son became their conductor, Stefan Istvan Pesci and his legacy is still there in Hungary and when he was in South Hungary and this was also part of his name because the city, Pec, was where he was working. This is why he called himself as Pesci. He was determining the musical life of the city. Now we have to go back to him, why he became a topic of our conversation now, because he was the first wind band composer while he was still military band conductor and composer as a Janáček student. He decided to write original concept pieces for wind band. In Hungary, he was the very first composer who wrote original wind band music, the Paterfi overture and the Mr. Pass, that is a bassoon solo accompanied with wind band. These are the two oldest original concert wind band pieces from Hungary.
Gifford: It has been a treat to have as our guest this week, Dr. Laszlo Marosi, an internationally recognized conductor and proponent of Hungarian band music. Franz Liszt had such an important influence on not only Hungarian music, but on our Western musical history. And I can think of no better way to end this week's show than with one of his historically significant marches. And before we do that, is there anything else, Dr. Marosi, that you would like to mention that related to this period we're talking about that we haven't talked about?
Marosi: Yes, you mentioned the name several times of Franz Liszt and I have to go back to him for a second because I think he's still underappreciated in terms of music history. Why do I say that? Because all the significant 19th century European composers like Wagner, Berlioz, Schumann, they all stated without Liszt we couldn't be who we are and what we did. He was the biggest inspiration. He was a pianist that nobody could do before. Schumann was super jealous of him and even cut his hands to make the distance between fingers bigger, same as Liszt had, and it was a bad idea because he paralyzed his hands, he couldn't play the piano anymore, but tried to be that good on the piano that Liszt was. Wagner said, without you I can't do my work and this is why he married to Liszt's daughter because he wanted to feel Liszt very close to him and why Liszt and about the piece that you will play now because there is another Hungarian military march that Liszt simply just adopted into that piece that you will play now. The original piece composer was Gungel and the march is called Hungarian March from 1836, Opus 1 by Gungel, and Liszt adapts that march to his composition, but in the trio. A form is not simply a trio. It's more complex, A, B, A, B, A. Beautifully, a Hungarian does, because Erkel introduced him that the national music that the gypsies playing the Csárdás, which today pub or bar, or I don't know what is the best to translate it, the Csárdás. And he, after the military march, pairs a Csárdás that first time you will hear on the horns, pianissimo. And after the A part comes back and the very end, everyone is playing the charter showing that. We have to be happy in our lives because nobody could get a second chance.
Gifford: I want to thank my colleague and friend for taking time from a ridiculously busy schedule to share his knowledge with us. Thanks again for listening and here's hoping that you will always have a smile on your face and a song in your heart.
