Zoltán Pongrácz was a Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Pongrácz studied composition from 1930 to 1935 with Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.-Life:Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child....

 at the Budapest Academy of Music. He became professor of composition at the Debrecen Conservatory in 1947 and continued in that position until 1958.

For a time he ceased compositional activity, until attending the Darmstadt summer courses in 1964, 1965, and 1972, and the third Cologne Courses for New Music in 1965–66 with Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

, Henri Pousseur

Henri Pousseur

Henri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...

, Luc Ferrari

Luc Ferrari

Luc Ferrari was of an Italian heritage but French born composer, particularly noted for his tape music.-Biography:...

, and Jaap Spek, and in Utrecht

Utrecht (city)

Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...

 with Gottfried Michael Koenig

Gottfried Michael Koenig

Gottfried Michael Koenig is a contemporary German-Dutch composer.-Biography:Koenig studied church music in Braunschweig, composition, piano, analysis and acoustics in Detmold, music representation techniques in Cologne and computer technique in Bonn. He attended and later lectured at the...

stimulated an interest in electronic composition. He was professor of electronic composition at the Budapest Academy from 1975 to 1995.

Compositions (selective list)

• Az ördög ajándéka [The Devil’s Present], ballet to a libretto by the composer (1936)
• Apollo musagètes, women's voices, clarinet, piano, and percussion (1958)
• Negritude, for chorus and percussion (1962)
• Ispirazioni, for chorus, orchestra, and tape (1965)
• Phonotese, for tape (1965–66)
• Hangok és zörejek [Tones and Noises], for orchestra (1966)
• Mariphonia, for tape (1972)
• Concertino for Saxophone and Tape (1972)
• Rapszódia, voices and gypsy band (1976)
• 144 hang [144 sounds], for tape (1977)
• Madrigál Petrarca LXI. Szonett [Madrigal on Petrarca's Sonnet No LXI] (1980)
• Contrasts polaires et succesifs, for tape (1986)
• Contrastes polaires et successifs (1987)
• Concertino for Cimbalom and Electronics (1989)
• Ut omnes unum sint, for chorus, reciting chorus, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 2 pianos, 3 violins, contrabass, 2 synthesizers, and tape (1995)

Sources

• Kovács, Ilona. 2004. Pongrácz Zoltán Magyar zeneszerzök 29. Budapest Mágus. ISBN 9639433314 English edition as Zoltán Pongrácz, translated by Peter Woodward, Hungarian composers 29. Budapest: Mágus, 2004 ISBN 9639433357
• Szigeti, István. 2000. "Electroacoustic Music in Hungary." Hungarian Music Quarterly 11, no. 1-2:15-19.
• Pongrácz, Zoltán 1967. A zenemúvészet "harmadik korszaka" Alföld 18, no. 3 (March): 79–88.