Tihamér Vujicsics

Biography

Mr Tihamér Vujicsics, Tihomir Vujičić, composer and folk music researcher, was born in Pomáz, Hungary, on 23 February, 1929, and passed away in Damascus, Syria, on 19 or 20 August, 1975.

His father, the Reverend Dusan Vujicsics ( 1903-1990), was a Greek Orthodox priest and Vicar to the Bishop. His younger brother, Mr Stoian Vujicsics (1933-2002), worked as a writer. Not only did Tihamér Vujicsics, in his youth, study Hungarian folk music but he systematically collected and researched into the folk songs and folklore traditions of the Serbs, Croats and Slovens living in Hungary. Moreover, Tihamér Vujicsics, following in Béla Bartók’s footsteps, looked upon comparative folk music research as his true profession. He occupied himself with the relationship between folk music in Hungary, the Balkans and the Orient, especially the spread of motifs.

Tihamér Vujicsics pursued his studies at the Ferenc Liszt College of Music under the tutelage of both Mr Sándor Veress and Mr Ferenc Farkas. He attended the lectures on folk music of Mr Zoltán Kodály who , at some point, relieved him of attending his lectures, saying, ’ There is nothing else that he can learn from me any more’. In 1949, it was politics that interfered in Tihamér Vujicsics’s career in such a way that he was dismissed from the Academy of Music on account of his origin. Consequently, he continued his studies at Nemzeti Zenede, the National School of Music, studying the art of composing under the tutelage of Mr Rezső Sugár. Tihamér Vujicsics was attracted to modern-day genres of music, and regarded the requirements of his age as well as the wide range of composing music as a challenge. He was influenced by Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg and Arnold Schönberg.

Tihamér Vujicsics was richly endowed with talent, playing all manner of musical instruments and frequently performing his own pieces of music. He both wrote the music and played the starring role of ’Koncert’ (1962), a film by Mr István Szabó. The bulk of his oeuvre is comprised of more than forty famous pieces of film music, including ’A Tenkes kapitánya’, ’ Princ, a katona’, and ’Bors’, as well as other pieces for films by Mr Károly Makk and Mr Miklós Jancsó. Tihamér Vujicsics also composed music for dance ballads and ballets such as ’Csudra Makar’ (1955), ’ A csodafurulyás juhász’ (1958), ’Kádár Kata’ (1958), ’Vérnász’ (1960), and ’Változatok egy találkozásra’, the latter being a famous piece performed by Pécsi Balett with choreography by Mr Imre Eck. He also wrote music for ’Az életbe táncoltatott leány’ (1964), a three-part series of dance films, as well as for a large number of plays adapted to radio broadcasting. Tihamér Vujicsics worked for Állami Népi Együttes as composer for a short time, then for Jégszínház and Mikroszkóp Színpad as Director of Music. He died in an aeroplane crash. In 1975, the Hungarian Television made a documentary of his life entitled ’Töredékek egy muzsikusról’. Several of his essays on folk music and his folk music collections were published in his life. His comprehensive work, ’A magyarországi délszlávok zenei hagyományai’, appeared posthumously in 1978. / Mrs Marietta Vujicsics /