Zoltán Göncz (born July 23, 1958, in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

) is a Hungarian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

who often applies archaic forms (

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

passacaglia The passacaglia (; ) is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used today by composers. It is usually of a serious character and is typically based on a bass- ostinato and written in triple metre. Origin Th ...

) and complex structures in his compositions. He graduated from the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in 1980. He was music editor at the National Philharmonic Agency between 1983 and 1997, then worked in the same capacity with the musical ensembles of the Hungarian Radio from 1997 to 2008. Since 2008 he has been researcher and lecturer at the Department of Hymnology of

John Wesley John Wesley ( ; 2 March 1791) was an English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a principal leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies ...

Theological College in Budapest. He has dealt intensively with musicology for decades.

Awards and distinctions

For his strenuous work in the field of familiarizing and propagating contemporary Hungarian music he was awarded with the Artisjus-Prize twice (1994, 2006). For his outstanding achievements in international Bach research and the book entitled ''Bach testamentuma'' ach's Testamenthe has been decorated with the Silver Cross of Distinction of the

Hungarian Republic Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and Slovenia to the ...

in 2009.

Works and completions

* ''“…i rinoceronti del nero cosmo…”'' – omaggio a

Dino Buzzati Dino Buzzati-Traverso (; 14 October 1906 – 28 January 1972) was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for ''Corriere della Sera''. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel '' The Tartar St ...

– for brass quintet (1985–86) * ''Great canon'' (Canon perpetuus per tonos et semitonium in contrario motu) – for orchestra (1987–88) * J. S. Bach: Fantasia and ''

Fugue In classical music, a fugue (, from Latin ''fuga'', meaning "flight" or "escape""Fugue, ''n''." ''The Concise Oxford English Dictionary'', eleventh edition, revised, ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Oxford and New York: Oxford Universit ...

in C minor'' BWV 562 (completion: 1989) (see external links) * J. S. Bach: ''Contrapunctus XIV'' (Quadruple fugue) from

The Art of Fugue ''The Art of Fugue'', or ''The Art of the Fugue'' (), BWV 1080, is an incomplete musical work of unspecified instrumentation by Johann Sebastian Bach. Written in the last decade of his life, ''The Art of Fugue'' is the culmination of Bach's e ...

(reconstruction and completion: 1990–92) (the score published by

Carus-Verlag Carus-Verlag is a German music publisher founded in 1972 and based in Stuttgart. Carus was founded by choral conductor Günter Graulich and his wife Waltraud with an emphasis on choral repertoire. the catalogue includes more than 26,000 works ...

V 18.018in 2006) (see external links) * ''Whirl,

Palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid ski ...

Pentium Pentium is a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel from 1993 to 2023. The Pentium (original), original Pentium was Intel's fifth generation processor, succeeding the i486; Pentium was Intel's flagship proce ...

'' – 3 algorithmic studies for 2 pianos (1996) (see external links) * ''Canon gradus a 12'' (per tonos, in contrario motu, per arsin et thesin) ad honorem J. S. – for mixed choir to a poem “Ten stairs” by

Sándor Weöres Sándor Weöres (; 22 June 1913 – 22 January 1989) was a Hungarian poet and author. Born in Szombathely, Weöres was brought up in the nearby village of Csönge. His first poems were published when he was fourteen, in the influential jour ...

(2005) * J. S. Bach: ''O Traurigkeit, o Herzeleid!'' –

chorale prelude In music, a chorale prelude or chorale setting is a short liturgical composition for pipe organ, organ using a chorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the German Baroque music, Baroque era and reached its culmination in the works ...

(fragment from the

Orgelbüchlein The ''Orgelbüchlein'' (''Little Organ Book'') BWV 599−644 is a set of 46 chorale preludes for organ – one of them is given in two versions – by Johann Sebastian Bach. All but three were written between 1708 and 1717 when Bach served as org ...

– BWV Anhang 200) (completion: 2011) (see external links) * J. S. Bach: ''Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied'' BWV 190/1 (reconstruction) ''Early Music'' Vol. 47/4, November 2019, Online Appendix

Publications

* "The Permutational Matrix in J. S. Bach’s Art of Fugue," ''Studia Musicologica'' Vol. 33, 1991, 109–119. * "Reconstruction of the Final Contrapunctus of The Art of Fugue," ''International Journal of Musicology'' Vol. 5, 1997, 25–93. ; Vol. 6, 1998, 103–119. (in Hungarian: "A fúga művészete zárócontrapunctusának rekonstrukciója," ''Bach Tanulmányok'' 2, 1993) * ''Bach testamentuma'' ach's testament Budapest, Gramofon könyvek, 2009 * "The Sacred Codes of the Six-Part

Ricercar A ricercar ( , ) or ricercare ( , ) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term ''ricercar'' derives from the Italian verb , which means "to search out; to seek"; many ricercars serve a preludial func ...

," ''Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute'' Vol. 42/1 (2011), 46–69. (see external links) (in Hungarian: "A hatszólamú ricercar szakrális kódjai," ''Magyar Zene'' 2011/1, 17–37.) * ''Bach's Testament. On the Philosophical and Theological Background of the Art of Fugue.'' Contextual Bach Studies 4, Scarecrow Press, 2013 (see external links) * "In search of the lost parts of Bach’s cantata ''Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied'' (BWV190)" ''Early Music'' Vol. 47/4, November 2019, 515–532. * "Two New Possible Models for the ′Confiteor′ of J. S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor" ''Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute'' Vol. 54, No. 1 (2023), 106–125. * „A “New” J. S. Bach Chorale-Aria? “Sende, Herr, den Segen ein” from Ihr Tore zu Zion BWV 193” ''Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute'' Vol. 56, No. 1 (2025), 94–116.

References

External links

J. S. Bach: ''Fugue in C minor'' BWV 562:2 (score)

* * [https://www.carus-verlag.com/themen/orgelmusik/johann-sebastian-bach-contrapunctus-14-fuer-orgel-tasteninstrument.html J. S. Bach: ''Contrapunctus XIV'' (reconstructed quadruple fugue from the Art of Fugue) – Carus-Verlag] * *
Zoltán Göncz: ''Three Algo-Rhytmic Studies'' (YouTube)

János Malina: The Ultimate Fugue, ''The Hungarian Quarterly,'' Winter 2007

Zoltán Göncz: The Sacred Codes of the Six-Part Ricercar, ''Bach Studies '' 11 (2011) – online version of the Hungarian Bach Society

Zoltán Göncz: ''Bach's Testament. On the Philosophical and Theological Background of the Art of Fugue.'' Scarecrow Press, 2013
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goncz, Zoltan Hungarian composers Hungarian male composers 1958 births Living people