Jelky András

“Jelky András” is a suite written to commission, around the end of 1973 and January 1974, for the town of Baja in southern Hungary. As a child I spent several summer holidays with my grandparents in Baja, where I read the incredible but true story of the local figure András Jelky (1738-83).

Jelky set out as a journeyman in Bavaria but in Holland he was conscripted into the army. On the way to India his ship was shipwrecked. Returning from South America he was kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave and after his escape he was a soldier in China and Indonesia wehre he was captured by cannibals. Finally he became a rich plantation owner in Java, and travelled as Indonesian diplomat in Oceania and Japan.

I set Jelky’s adventures in music as if the protagonist himself were the narrator: the music is Hungarian, it is merely adorned with oriental and exotic colouring. The string ensemble is supplemented with a piano. As well as traditional sounds, the piece contains many special effects: the musicians strike the body of their instrument with their bow, or the strings with their palms. At other times a timpani stick is used to strike the lower strings of the piano, or the pianist has to hit the lid of the keyboard with the palms of his hands.

The piece begins with the start of the intrepid young man’ journey followed by a storm at sea. Then come the musical portraits of Ali Hussein in Algeria, the greedy and cruel mandarin Fu Kong, Kwanga, the young girl from Ceylon who saved his life, and of Ramayun the solitary fakir. The last movement picks up the theme from the beginning.

— Ferenc Farkas