At the Liszt Academy

During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, like everyone else I missed a great many things. Most of them were of the unremarkable day-to-day variety, small rituals and interchanges that I'd completely taken for granted until they were taken away. 

Something I'd never taken for granted though, but definitely missed, was going to concerts, especially those at the Liszt Academy, not far from where I live in Budapest. 

Of course the music at a concert is the most important element, but when the concert hall itself is lovely it enhances listeners' experience of the music. This link will give you an idea of just how sumptuous the Liszt Academy building and its concert hall are. The separate elements are not all necessarily beautiful in isolation, but together they create a dazzling splendour, conveying a sense of confidence and optimism, a verve that has since been lost.

That loss is unsurprising when you realise that the concert hall was first opened in 1907. The people who commissioned its riot of decorative details had no idea that in less than a decade war would break out and their ordered world would be shattered. Their innocence is for me most poignantly expressed in the design of the stained-glass ceiling panels that proclaim the virtues of song and poetry, rhythm and beauty. The people who created these do not appear to have suffered from our contemporary inhibitions; no one seems to have suggested they restrain themselves, toning their enthusiasm down a bit in order to try to seem cool.

I think that when human beings gather to listen to music, we are at our most civilised. At the Liszt Academy last week, my mind was still full of the news that a wave of primitive violence had been unleashed on civilians in Israel, the murderers exhibiting the kind of demonic joy I associate with Charles Manson's acolytes. Then out came the orchestra, a group of people who devote their lives to the discipline of musicianship. Following them came the conductor, a great favourite with the Budapest audience, now approaching 90 years old. The music began and as we listened it seemed to me that everyone in that room was striking a blow for civilisation. We must never let the barbarians win.