Gábor Benda
Biography Gábor Benda
Gábor Benda
is a Hungarian pianist and composer.
"Once, during a school event I played J.S Bach’s Prelude in C minor (BWV 999). I had a terrible stage fright, after all the whole school was watching, and it was my first public performance. My teacher was really touched by my humble piano playing and said that I played the keys like Jesus walked on water. She told me that Bach is the most important composer in music history and the closest person to God, the closest person to Jesus. At that moment somehow, I understood at this very young age that our whole cultural existence is based upon the existence of Jesus Christ: music, literature, fine arts; everything is connected to him.
From that moment J.S Bach became my favourite composer. The way his melodies, his polyphonous leads develop in his compositions is like a never-ending energy that moves nature; as the leaves grow on trees and die and grow again in an infinitive circle in a time-lapse video recording. His music imitates the whole eternal cycle of life that is being triggered by an irresistible outside force. This is the essential moving force I wanted to represent in my music. Not to imitate Bach but to follow the substantive nature of things that Bach followed and tell stories to modern humankind in a traditional way through an up-to-date language." Gábor Benda
