Károly Binder-Norbert Káel: Reflections on Liszt

If Franz Liszt were alive today, he would surely be a jazz pianist. An exaggeration? This concert's two performers, the Erkel Prize-winning Károly Binder and his former student and current colleague Norbert Káel, both agree that it is no such thing. Classical piano technique reached its peak in the time of Liszt, and largely through his efforts. The composer-pianist was not just unique for his virtuosity, but also for his improvisational ability, two skills that today primarily define jazz... musicians. Binder and Káel often perform classical pieces and paraphrases, and an essential element of their music is the combination of different genres. Binder has composed concertos for orchestra and for piano, as well as writing for traditional piano, percussion and orchestra, while Káel's most important band is the Jazzical Trio, which, true to its name, builds its rich repertoire on jazzy reinterpretations of classical pieces. Another link between the two musicians is that Binder has been head of the jazz department of the Franz Liszt Music Academy since 2000, while Káel received a degree there. Like Binder, he was also an apprentice of Kálmán Oláh and later studied on a scholarship at the Berklee College of Music.
The two artists will not undertake to interpret the works of Liszt on this occasion. In their own compositions and in the improvisations that permeate them, they much rather view Liszt's approach to music as a starting point, and the world of harmony and melody, as well as the sophisticated technical knowledge that characterizes it, as a bar that few are able to surpass.