Pianist Mariann Marczi in conversation with Lucy Jeffery
The Hungarian pianist, Mariann Marczi is Professor of Piano at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Her repertoire is vast and includes Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Ligeti’s Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, Bartók’s Out of Doors, Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques, and Liszt’s Piano Concerto E flat major. She has achieved outstanding international success in several competitions. Most recently, in 2025, she was awarded the silver prize at the American Classical Music Awards and won first prize at the International Moscow Music Competition. She performs at major concert halls across Europe and the United States.
Recently, I have had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Mariann Marczi, about her musical life and four recordings for solo piano that came out in August 2026. At a café in Budapest, we sat down and talked about the musical industry today. I also asked Mariann about her musical education, inspiration, role as a teacher, and life as a performer.
Lucy Jeffery. When did you first notice that you had more than an appreciation of music, rather, something more profound – a willingness to dedicate your life to music?
Mariann Marczi At first, it was the instrument itself – the piano – that intrigued me. I was completely mesmerised when I first got to play an upright piano at a social gathering. The sound of the piano itself and the way the keys operated were fascinating to me. This happened when I was about 3 or 4 years old. From that moment on, I spent a lot of time with it. After that, my mother started teaching me; she wasn’t a piano teacher, but she had studied piano herself. Later, I attended a music school, and when I was around 10 years old, I won a regional piano competition. The experience of being on stage there, and the profound interaction I felt with the audience through the music, played an absolute decisive role in realising that this would become my lifelong profession.
LJ. With such an early introduction to the piano, it is hardly surprising that you went on to become a student at the Liszt Academy in Budapest and that you are now Assistant Professor of Piano there. How does teaching contribute to your musical interpretation and performances?
MM. There is a continuous interplay between my teaching, interpretation, and stage performances. In the process of guiding students through so many different works, I am always learning alongside them. To teach is to learn twice. What I also love about teaching is that it requires pinpoint precision when discussing musical works, which in turn guides me to articulate my own interpretation more precisely on the instrument.
LJ. As has often been said, if you want to master something, you have to teach it first. Alongside teaching and performing recitals, you have had success at several international competitions. For example, in 1993 you won the Grand Prize in the Chopin Festival Budapest and then in 2025 you won Second Prize at the International Mozart Competition. What is the experience of competing in these competitions like for you? Do you enjoy it?
MM. What I enjoy most is the preparation process – working deeply with the pieces and channelling my energy into progressing through a programme day by day. I love building the process step by step to ensure everything is optimal by the time I have to perform. In a competition setting, a major positive is that the jury usually consists of outstanding musicians, and their feedback helps me gain a broader perspective on where I currently stand in my artistic path.
LJ. This goes back to the idea of teaching where you can approach a piece from new perspectives, tweak this approach, and continually refine your interpretation. If competitions, teaching, and recitals are not enough already, you have just released four albums! But, before I ask you about this intense recording period, I’d like to go back a few years to ask you about Splinters which was your first album released by Odradek Records in 2013 (review). This album showcases seven Hungarian composers of the twentieth century. The music is often sparse and influenced by folk traditions and poetry. What is it about this musical period in Hungary that fascinates you?
MM. Indeed, folk music roots lie behind most of the pieces on the Splinters album. The music of both Bartók and Kodály is an inexhaustible source of experience for me. It is also interesting to see how foreign influences appear. For example, both Kodály and Lajtha draw heavily on French music. Lajtha, for instance, was a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts and his French sheet music publisher was Leduc. Folk music elements can be found in abundance in the works of Kurtág and Ligeti as well. Not only from Hungarian folk music, but from the music of other nations too. However, in the pieces featured on the album, jazz, serialism, and repetitive musical trends can also be discovered. For me, it was also interesting that the piano does not always have to function as a piano in these works, but rather as a full orchestra, or as a cimbalom, a harp, percussion instruments, a folk fiddle, African rhythmic instruments, or a string quartet. I always like to think of piano works in terms of orchestration.
LJ That gives us a fascinating insight into your approach when playing the piano. I think Dave Brubeck said something similar of the piano as a whole orchestra. Of your recent albums, I’d like to ask you about Enchanting Scents which was released this August with Hunnia Records. How did you come up with the concept for this album; specifically, what made you select the Romantic and Post-Romantic pieces that you perform on the record? And what is the rehearsal process like for you – do you lock yourself away to focus, or are you more collaborative in your approach?
MM. For a while, the practice process is all about seizing every spare moment to practice. Before recording an album, it’s crucial to perform the pieces live at concerts multiple times. Leading up to the studio work, however, I completely immerse myself in practice and spend the final days in total isolation.
The core idea of the album is centred around scents. Through a former student of mine, I came into contact with plant essences, and I completely immersed myself in learning about them. Later on, a poem by the Hungarian poet Lőrinc Szabó, titled ‘Varázsló illatok‘ (‘Enchanting Scents’), deeply moved me. It sparked the realisation that if poetry can describe scents and the emotions they evoke so beautifully, music must be capable of doing the same. When selecting the pieces, I focused on plants whose scents I know well and love. It was also important to include works by Sibelius, as we are celebrating a Sibelius anniversary, and I am deeply fond of his music. I truly believe his works should be performed much more frequently in concert life. The fact that most of the pieces on the album are transcriptions was not an intentional choice at first. However, I grew to love how these arrangements allow us to bend the gates of time repeatedly, tracking down [Proust’s] In Search of the Lost Time. Furthermore, almost every single piece on the record is secretly backed by a poem or a text. I even created one of the transcriptions for the album myself – an arrangement of a Kosma chanson. Making transcriptions is always a deeply inspiring task for me. To complete the experience, every poem and text excerpt associated with the pieces is available to read in English in the album’s booklet.
LJ. The booklet manages to marry text and sound so well with the literature that you mention. And, yes, I have enjoyed listening to your recording of Sibelius’s The Trees. Last Sunday, I also reviewed for Seen and Heard International the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s performance at Müpa, of Sibelius’s Second Symphony, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, which was wonderful. Going back to your albums, for our readers, could you briefly explain the concepts behind other three albums that you have released?
MM. As for the other three albums, Condensed Gestures pays tribute to composer György Kurtág, who has celebrated his 100th birthday. I am in the fortunate position of having been able to work on the piece personally with the composer in the period leading up to the recording.
The Grieg album, The Face of the North, is essentially an overview of the Norwegian people’s lives, landscapes, and celebrations. What is truly brilliant about Grieg is that he can open up immense horizons for both the performer and the listener through miniature pieces. These works act as windows to a much broader world. In this way, they transport us directly from the piano or the music player into the purity and depth of the Northern emotional world.
The Haydn and Schubert album, on the other hand, juxtaposes two sonatas: a two-movement Haydn sonata built from short gestures, and a nearly 40-minute, four-movement Schubert sonata. Both are absolutely luminous sonatas. These two works perfectly illustrate the structural and dimensional shifts within Classical forms. And I wanted to show how the emotional and conceptual worlds within these two sonatas can be equally expressed, even within vastly different structural boundaries and frameworks.
LJ. Thank you for such clear explanations of these albums. I have to ask: what was it like working with Kurtág? His creativity knows no limits with his second opera premiering at the same time as he marked his 100th birthday!
MM. Working with György Kurtág is always an incredibly meticulous process. He explains each micro-element and musical gesture in a deeply profound and detailed manner. He only moves forward in the piece once the performer has fully understood a specific element and when the sounds are produced exactly according to his vision. Working step-by-step with the performers this way, he always strives for an absolutely pure and clear result. And when he has gone through every single detail of a movement with the performer, he suddenly exclaims: ‘Now, the concert!’ This means that you can finally summarize the movement in one single, continuous flow, integrating and realizing everything Kurtág advised during the coaching. In these moments, you have to focus on so many things simultaneously, but it is absolutely fantastic to experience how the interpretation beautifully unfolds under Kurtág’s guidance.
LJ. Thank you for sharing that experience, it sounds intensely focused and rewarding. I know that you are also an organist and play for a church congregation in Buda every Sunday. Indeed, it was a pleasure to listen to you play last Sunday! Is there any cross-pollination between your organ and piano recitals? How has playing organ repertoire shaped your musical ear?
MM. I don’t hold an official degree in organ performance or church music. I simply love playing the organ, and it is deeply important to me to serve through music. I am very fond of the Baroque repertoire, and I have always looked for the unique nuances in the keyboard works of Baroque composers. I have never understood why the majority of pianists stop at Bach and Scarlatti when it comes to the Baroque era. There are so many fascinating Baroque composers. On the organ, the articulation of Baroque music carries even greater significance, requiring time management to be utilised with much more weight than on the piano; at the same time, the vast registrations and tonal possibilities of the instrument open up entirely new dimensions in each piece. There are many works that I play on both the organ and the piano. Soon, my Baroque album will be released by Hunnia Records, featuring a selection of pieces on the piano from my absolute favourite composers.
LJ. This is very exciting; I’m looking forward to listening to this album. One of my favourite composers for the organ is Johann Ludwig Krebs. I guess that if your teacher is J. S. Bach, you can’t go wrong! More broadly, what are your musical tastes? What would be your ‘most listened to’ recordings or songs of 2026? For me, this year has been filled with a lot of Mahler and, as I’ve mentioned, some Sibelius, as well as Emil Gilels’ recordings which I return to so often. To change things up, I’ve also listened to a lot of Gábor Presser.
MM. You’ve been listening to some really great music! I really love listening to string quartets and singers as well. The string quartets of Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Schubert occupy my mind deeply. Among singers, I thoroughly enjoy listening to Jonas Kaufmann accompanied on the piano by Helmut Deutsch. Maria Callas’s voice and stage presence are very important to me. Anna Prohaska and Magdalena Kožená are also favourite singers of mine. Among violinists, I love listening to Ginette Neveu.
If we move away from classical music, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald are also absolute favourites, and P. J. Harvey, Tom Waits, Akkezdet Phïai, and the Sex Pistols frequently pop up on my music player. There are a few performers whose shows I love for their 100% polish and calculated design. For example, Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, and Tina Turner. With them, everything is absolutely planned, conscious, and rehearsed to the absolute limit, yet it still feels completely spontaneous. In a way, this is an important aspect of art: that things which are completely artificial and masterfully engineered end up creating the illusion of naturalness. I once saw a still life by a Dutch painter – the work of an unknown artist. A very small painting. There were raspberries next to the other fruits in a bowl. And the dustiness of the raspberries, that tiny whitish tint on the painting and on the berries, appeared as perfectly, flawlessly real raspberries. It must have required incredible painterly and technical skill. Oil paint and canvas are completely artificial things compared to real fruit. Yet those raspberries seemed truly more real than the ones I put in my breakfast.
LJ. Those seventeenth-century Dutch still life paintings are indeed anything but ‘still life’, they are living paintings that breathe life into the simplest items like a raspberry, insect, or lemon peel. Thinking about all of the music you mentioned, from Schumann to the Sex Pistols, does this music shape the way you perform music; does it inspire you and give you new ideas?
MM. Yes. I personally believe in 300% preparation and meticulous planning. Once that is in place, only then can there be absolute artistic freedom.
LJ. To see discipline as a facilitator rather than inhibitor of artistic freedom speaks to your dedication to the piano which began at such a young age. For those wanting to hear more from you, are there any new albums or upcoming recitals that we should be aware of?
MM. Following the previously mentioned Baroque album, both a Mozart album and an album featuring works by English composers are set to be released. We already recorded the material for these over the summer. The booklets are currently in the making. As for my performances, in October, I will be performing at a three-day contemporary music festival in Budapest. Following that, on October 16th, I will give a solo organ recital in Budapest, featuring works by Pachelbel, Frescobaldi, and Bach. On October 17th, I will perform a piano recital at the magically beautiful Art Deco Salon in Budapest, featuring the programme from my album Enchanting Scents. In November, I have been invited to serve as the Head of the Jury for the National Piano Competition, which is held in Budapest in memory of my former teacher, Marianne Ábrahám, and in celebration of the Sibelius anniversary. At the opening concert of the competition on November 7th, I will perform Sibelius’s Five Piano Pieces, The Trees, Op. 75, as well as song transcriptions by Franz Liszt.
LJ. That sounds excellent, I wish you all the best for these performances and for judging at the National Piano Competition. For my final question, I am going to copy the famous BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Desert Island Discs’ by asking: if you were stuck on a desert island, what would be the piece of music you would bring with you, what book would you choose to read, and what luxury item would you like to have?
MM. It depends on whether there is a piano on the desert island. If there is a piano and I could bring the music in the form of sheet music, I would bring a piece I haven’t learned yet, so I could spend a lot of time learning it undisturbed – for example, Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus. If there is no piano but I had to bring sheet music, I would choose a piece I have already learned, which I can keep alive in my memory even without an instrument, with the help of the score: Bach’s Goldberg Variations. If I had to bring music to listen to, it would be Schubert’s String Quartet in G major. For reading material, I would bring the complete works of Shakespeare. A luxury item? Well, for me, luxury does not manifest in a tangible form. I mostly experience things that are not objects as a luxury. But if I absolutely must choose an object, I would like to receive a special, multilingual luxury Bible. One that has built-in pockets or pouches in its beautiful binding. And, in these pockets, there would be the plant oils that appear in biblical stories, as well as the seeds of the plants that hold significance in the Bible. This way, with a Bible like this, I would get along well on any island. God’s word would be there with me, I would plant the seeds hoping they would grow into a garden around me, and if anything were wrong with me, I would use the fine-scented oil anointings.
LJ. That’s very resourceful of you! I should’ve mentioned that you are automatically given the complete works of Shakespeare and a copy of the Bible, but the explanations you’ve given for choosing both of these texts are both fitting and inventive, so we can leave it just like that! Mariann, it has been a pleasure speaking with you. I wish you all the very best with your upcoming projects and look forward to meeting up again in Budapest.
Readers interested in Mariann Marczi’s latest recordings: Enchanting Scents, The Face of the North, Miniature & Monument: Luminous Sonatas, and Condensed Gestures will soon be able to read reviews here.
