Rehearsal / 48. trabant (2) / Mihály Víg
Translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes
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Translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes
ott torony volt / A Tower Used to Stand There
ott torony volt fekete tenger
A tower stood there by a black sea
benn a vízben rengeteg ember
with millions drowning constantly
hol lehet most nem találom
I can’t find it I don’t know where
biztos megjön itt megvárom
but if I wait it will appear.
mindaképpen mint azelőtt
In any case by almost four
négykor itt lesz a bolt bolt előtt
it’ll be at the shopfront as before
ez a magas nagyon derék
it is so tall and brave, heroic,
kicsit dagadt, azért szerény
slightly swollen therefore stoic
másmilyen mint általában
different from its usual mien
vonzó volt, ha néha láttam
attractive then, but rarely seen
vagy mágus ez, vagy kábulat
it’s under a spell or in a stupor
levegőt vesz a víz alatt
see, it can breathe under water
most is inog, mén serényen
and still it totters, a stallion twisting
vizet látok a sörényen
the water on its mane is glistening
fekete víz, fehér tenger
the water’s black, sea white as snow
torony csónak és sok ember
the tower a boat where masses flow.
Order a copy of trabant (2)
from purge.xxx.
from purge.xxx.
trabant, the cult band’s cult band, were formed in Hungary in 1980. The closest the group ever came to producing a record was in the form of a promotional 7” vinyl for a film in which the core members starred. At the centre of an anti-authoritarian (that is, literally outlawed) underground music scene in Hungary, this film soundtrack represented an opportunity to distribute their music without acquiring the recording and distribution license demanded by the censorious Communist regime. trabant measured their own success through independence and fun, as a circle of artists recording a significant body of work with rudimentary recording equipment and instruments (much of which was purchased in a toy store), always behind closed doors. The band had an ever-changing line-up formed around co-founders Gábor Lukin, Marietta Méhes and János Vetö and, latterly, with Mihály Víg (of Balaton; soundtrack composer for Béla Tarr). trabant shared some of these recordings through a clandestine cassette tape network; the only two records in circulation are released by purge.xxx, trabant (2024) and trabant 2 (2025).
For more audio and video samples,
see purge.xxx/purrrrrj036 &/or purge.xxx/purrrrrj044.
Mihály Víg was born in Budapest in 1957 into a family of musicians. At the age of 21 he founded the band Balaton, with whom he still performs. Between 1982 and 1985 he was a member of the band trabant, whose concerts were considered to be legendary events in the Hungarian underground in the second half of the Kádár era. Víg is best known internationally for his film scores. Along with film directors such as János Xantus, Péter Müller, András Szirtes and Ildikó Szabó, and he has worked particularly closely with director Béla Tarr. Víg composed the music for Tarr’s films Öszi Almanach / Almanac of the Fall (1984), Kárhozat / Damnation (1987), Az utolsó hajó / The Last Boat / City Life (1990), Sátántangó (1994)—in which Víg played the main role—Utazás az alföldön / Journey on the Plain (1995), Werckmeister harmóniák / Wreckmeister Harmonies (2000) and, most recently, A Londoni férfi / The Man from London (2007), for which he received the EU XXL film Award, XXXX. As the jury wrote in their evaluation, they honoured ‘a composer whose musical work in films—in longstanding collaboration with director Tarr—sets itself apart by cutting down to the essence. Their most recent collaborative work [gives a sense of] the impact of Víg’s minimalist and unbelievably catchy feel for notes and tones.’ In simple, poetic language, using universal themes such as love and freedom, Víg’s lyrics enter into a symbiotic relationship with his music, letting the pieces reveal themselves as intimately as necessary. In 1996 a collection of his lyrics and prose pieces was published under the title Versek és novellák / Verse and Novellas. In 1998, Víg recorded the album Cigánydalok / Gypsy Songs, following in the footsteps of his father, who had collected the songs of the Roma people while a member on the ethno music committee at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Víg has also participated in the Athe Sam festival, where a wide range of Roma culture is presented in the areas of literature, dance, theatre, film, visual arts and, in particular, music. Víg has also composed music to accompany stage plays. He has been given numerous awards, including the critics’ award for best music by the Hungarian film festival in Budapest. He is a knight of the Hungarian Republic. A father of five, Mihály Víg lives in Budapest.
George Szirtes was born in Hungary and emigrated to England with his parents—survivors of concentration and labour camps—after the 1956 Budapest uprising. Szirtes studied painting at Harrow School of Art and Leeds College of Art and Design. At Leeds he studied with Martin Bell, who encouraged Szirtes as he began to develop his poetic themes: an engaging mix of British individualism and European fluency in myth, fairy tale, and legend. Szirtes’s attention to shape and sound, cultivated through his background in visual art and his bilingual upbringing, quickly led to his successful embrace of formal verse. In an essay in Poetry magazine defending form, Szirtes argues that ‘rhyme can be unexpected salvation, the paper nurse that somehow, against all the odds, helps us stick the world together while all the time drawing attention to its own fabricated nature.’ His first book, The Slant Door (1979), won the Faber Memorial Prize. Bridge Passages (1991) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize. Reel (2004) won the T.S. Eliot Prize, and his New and Collected Poems was published by Bloodaxe in 2008. Szirtes did not return to Hungary until 1984, when he visited on the first of several Arts Council traveling scholarships. He has since translated, edited, and anthologised numerous collections of Hungarian poetry. For his translation work Szirtes has won several awards, including the Dery Prize for Imre Madach’s The Tragedy of Man (1989) and the European Poetry Translation Prize for Zsuzsa Rakovsky’s New Life (1994). His own work has been translated into numerous languages and widely anthologized, including in Penguin’s British Poetry Since 1945. He is the author of Exercise of Power (2001), a critical study of the artist Ana Maria Pacheco. He co-edited, with Penelope Lively, New Writing 10 (2001). Szirtes has written extensively for radio and is the author of more than a dozen plays, musicals, opera libretti and oratorios.
