Liszt Academy: A New Century, A Renewed Building
On 22 October 2013, the anniversary of the birth of Ferenc Liszt, Budapest regains one of the defining buildings of its cityscape, the Liszt Academy. In addition to the music and musicology teaching at tertiary level, the reopening marks the moment that the university launches its own cultural and concert organization activities – under the name Liszt Academy Concert Centre – in the historical building on Liszt Ferenc Square.
One of the most impressive examples of Central European Art Nouveau architecture, this has been a bastion of music teaching and at the same time Hungarian concert life since 1907. The foundations were actually laid by Ferenc Liszt, although he never lived to see the inauguration of this imposing structure. Many great names started from here: Ernő Dohnányi, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, and in their wake György Cziffra, Annie Fischer, György Solti and György Ligeti began their careers here.
The Grand Hall, restored to its original splendour and bearing the stylistic flourishes of Hungarian Art Nouveau, is famed as a concert venue, and not only because of its decorative elements reminiscent of the Dionysian and Apollonian symbolic system; it has been world-renowned for more than a century due to its unequalled acoustics. In the course of reconstruction the Chamber Hall has also been reborn: with its orchestral pit created to the original plans and modern stage machinery, this will be a unique venue for chamber opera performances and ensemble concerts. As a consequence partly of the characteristics of the building, the world's leading artists have returned, time and time again, to its stage over the past century.