JÁNOS SEBESTYÉN'S ITALIAN AWARD
The following article appeared in the Summer 2004
In the previous issue of Musical Notes, we wrote that Mr. János Sebestyén, a member of the Board of Directors of the Friends, received the Officers Grade of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic from H.E. Giovan Battista Verderame, the Ambassador of Italy. Mr. Sebestyén was granted this award for decades of work for the propagation of Italian cultural values and the development of Italian-Hungarian cultural exchange, as well as for his artistic achievements.
Music lovers and radio listeners know that both as an artist and a broadcaster, you were always familiar with Italy and Italian culture. Do you have any memories of your rich contacts with Italy, which you would like to share with the readers of Musical Notes?
I have a very close relationship with one Italian city, I would say it is my second home, and that is Milan. I have visited it about 70 times. Not very long after my first visit there in 1963, I received my first award. In 1968, I was awarded the Gold Medal of the City Tourism Office for a radio programme I made together with Ervin Földényi, without even visiting the city. Twenty years later I received the Cavaliere award (it may correspond to the Hungarian Knight's Cross). In the meantime, I made about 50 recordings for LPs in Milan, gave about 70 concerts in different Italian cities and as a "spin-off" I made a series of radio broadcasts. After 1986 these activities moved to the Marche county, where one can find the most beautiful old organs. For example, in St. Elpidio Mare there are two historical organs in one of the churches. They organize concerts and competitions in this church every year and I also made some recordings for Hungaroton there. I have a close relationship with Professor Luigi Celeghin, who is the expert responsible for old organs in the county.
In Trapani, the southernmost town of Sicily, the organ, which was damaged during the bombing in 1944, was restored and inaugurated in 2003, in the presence of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, President of Italy. It is an extraordinary organ, built by Francesco La Grassa. It has three key tables; you need three organists to play on it. On this solemn occasion the three organists were professor Celeghin (Rome), Rudolf Kelber (Hamburg) and myself. Apart from the President, the audience of 700 included the bishop, the mayor and many inhabitants of the town, as well as the President's security team (about 80 policemen, gendarmes, firemen - a whole army). I presented the President with a collection of CDs of Italian and Hungarian music and after we shook hands, to my great surprise, the 83 year-old President ran up about 100 steps, together with professor Celeghin, to the organ, studied this wonderful instrument for 10 minutes, tested the manuals, crept in behind the pipes. When the President disappeared between the pipes, the security men got scared and wondered where he was. All this was broadcast on the Sicilian and Italian television networks. The audience waited patiently during this rare and charming scene, which was beneficial not only for organs in Italy, but in the whole world. No other president ever showed so much interest in organs.
This event in February 2003, led to the award in November, when I received the second grade of the Italian award, the Ufficiale order of merit (The Officers Grade of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic - ML). During President Ciampi's visit to Hungary in March 2004, he received a CD recording of the whole concert in Trapani, for which he expressed his warmest thanks in a letter.
The visit of the President was also the last official event for Giovan Battista Verderame as ambassador. During his almost 5 years in Budapest he enriched Italian-Hungarian cultural contacts to an incredible degree.
Thank you for this interesting story. You probably have many more such memories. Do you have any plans to publish them in the form of memoirs?
I have many memories and "sound" documents. I don't need to go too far. The programme The Diary of a Radio Reporter has been on Hungarian Radio for 34 years, although the title is not quite correct, as it is a collection of recollections by other people. (By the way there was such a publication on the occasion of the seventieth birthday of the Radio; the major part of it was written by Jenő Randé and about a quarter of it by myself.) I have spent 54 years with the radio, so I have many memories. Not all of them are happy ones, as many of the people connected with these memories are no longer alive. If I were to publish a book I could only imagine doing so by telling the stories to somebody who wrote them down. For example, the composer Miklós Rózsa filled 35 cassettes with his memories during one summer, and they were then published by the Zeneműkiadó publishing house in 1980. It would be easier to make a book in this way, since a listener gives me inspiration.
Thank you, Professor Sebestyén, for the interview. Once again my congratulations for the award and I wish you many more years of musical and radio activities.
Miklós Locsmándi
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