Né à Budapest (Hongrie) en 1919, István Anhalt débute sa formation musicale dès l’âge de six ans et entreprend, en 1936, des leçons de musique avec Zoltán Kodály. L’année suivante, il s’inscrit à l’Académie de musique de Budapest où il suit, entre autres, des cours de composition avec Kodály et de piano avec György Kósa. Élève particulièrement doué, il reçoit son diplôme en 1941 et obtient des mentions d’excellence dans plusieurs disciplines, dont la composition, l’orchestration, le piano et l’histoire de la musique. En 1944, après deux années de réclusion dans des camps de travaux forcés sous le commandement de l’armée hongroise, Anhalt réussit à s’échapper et doit vivre en utilisant de faux papiers jusqu’à la fin de la guerre. Il quitte finalement la Hongrie en 1946 et s’installe à Paris durant trois années pour y étudier la direction d’orchestre avec Louis Fourestier, au Conservatoire national de musique et d’art dramatique, tout en prenant des cours privés de composition avec Nadia Boulanger ainsi que des cours de piano avec Soulima Stravinski. En 1949, grâce à une bourse de la Lady Davis Foundation, István Anhalt émigre au Canada. Son oeuvre Interludium, composée la même année, sera aussi dédiée à Lady Davis. À son arrivée au Canada, Anhalt entame sa carrière de professeur et d’administrateur à la faculté de musique de l’Université McGill où il élabore un programme de  composition et devient aussi directeur du département des matières théoriques (1963-1969). Son intérêt particulier pour la musique électroacoustique et l’exploration de nouvelles sonorités l’amène à la mise sur pied du Studio de musique électronique de l’Université McGill, dont il assure la direction de 1964 à 1971. Professeur invité Slee à l’Université d’État de New York à Buffalo pour la session d’automne 1969, il est  ensuite nommé directeur de la faculté de musique de l’Université Queen’s (1971-1981). Anhalt se retire en 1984 et demeure résident de la ville de Kingston (Ontario). Au cours de sa carrière, Anhalt compose plusieurs oeuvres sur commande, dont Cento: Cantata Urbana (University Chamber Singers, 1967), La Tourangelle (Société Radio-Canada, 1975), Thisness (Vancouver New Music Society, 1985), Simulacrum (National Arts Centre Orchestra, 1987), SparkskrapS (Esprit Orchestra, 1988) et Twilight Fire (Kingston Symphony Orchestra, 2002). L’opéra Winthrop, d’une durée de deux heures et demie, est sans contredit son oeuvre la plus imposante. Présentée en 1986 au Centre in the Square (Kitchener) dans le cadre de l’Année internationale de la musique canadienne et des célébrations du 50e anniversaire de la Société Radio-Canada, elle nécessite 30 instrumentistes, 6 chanteurs solistes, un choeur mixte de 24 voix ainsi qu’un choeur d’enfants. L’artiste a aussi composé plusieurs pièces pour ensembles de chambre ou solistes, dont la Sonate pour violon et piano, Doors… Shadows (Glenn Gould in Memory) pour quatuor à cordes, la Fantasia pour piano et les Six Songs from Na Conxy Pan pour voix et piano. En 1993, István Anhalt reçoit la Médaille commémorative du 125e anniversaire de la Confédération canadienne.

Istvan Anhalt, born into a Jewish family in Budapest in 1919, studied with Zoltan Kodaly before being conscripted into a forced labour camp during World War II. In the late 1940s he studied under Nadia Boulanger and Soulima Stravinsky before emigrating to Canada in 1949, where he has been an important figure in the Canadian music scene for the last fifty years.
Based on a wealth of experience and first-hand knowledge, Istvan Anhalt provides biographical information on Anhalt's life in Europe and Canada, as well as critical articles on his music and writings. Previously unpublished writings by Anhalt as well as a commentary on his most recent opera are also included.
« In Memory of László Gyopár (1916–1944), István Székely, Ödön Taubner, László Weiner, fellow composition students at the Ferenc Liszt Hungarian Academy of Music during 1937-1940, who lost their lives while serving in forced-labour units for Jews in the Hungarian Army during World War II ».

Reviewed by Martin Anderson

Happy the composer who gets this kind of attention — and is still around to enjoy it. What we have here is basically a four-part Festschrift dedicated to the life and work of the Budapest-born Canadian composer Istvan Anhalt: biography, essays on his music and his writings and, in part IV, some of Anhalt's own writing.

István (he dropped the diacritical after some years in Canada) Anhalt was born into a Budapest Jewish family in 1919 and studied under Kodály in the Franz Liszt Academy. As a Jew in Horthy's Hungary, Anhalt was familiar with institutional anti-Semitism, but the racial laws became much stricter in 1939 and 1941 as the regime aligned its policies with those of Nazi Germany. Like Ligeti, Anhalt was conscripted into labour-service in December 1942 (a little village in Transylvania, called Elöpatak), which meant ten to twelve hours heavy work for six to seven days a week. Meanwhile Eichmann's deportations to Auschwitz had begun, and would ultimately consume almost half a million Hungarian Jews. Anhalt managed twice to escape from his labour unit, the second time disguised as a Salesian priest, and was able to hide out the rest of the War in safe houses. A job as répétiteur in the new opera house was not renewed, probably because Anhalt was not a member of the Communist Party, and he began to think of emigrating. A Zionist organisation got him the papers necessary to leave the country, and in late January 1946 he took the train to Vienna. From there he continued to Germany, and then to Paris — like many Hungarian musicians at the time, including Janos Starker, György Sebök and Livia Rev. He spent almost three years there, studying with Nadia Boulanger and Soulima Stravinsky. The Lady Davis Foundation, set up to encourage the immigration of displaced foreign scholars into Canada, then accepted him into their programme and the next major step in Anhalt's life began on 23 January 1949, when he landed at Halifax and made his way to McGill University in Montreal, where an assistant professorship awaited him.

Anhalt had starting composing again almost as soon as he had left Hungary, and now in Canada began experimenting with serial technique. It was his Symphony, written in 1954–58 and premiered in 1959, that brought him widespread attention; meantime, he also developed an interest in electronic music, setting up an electronic-music studio at McGill in 1964. After 22 years there, he moved to the music department of Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, and taught there until his retirement in 1984.

That tale takes up roughly the first hundred pages in the book. Then come a series of chapters which make one wish the music were better known outside Canada: Robin Elliott on the instrumental solo and chamber music, John Beckwith on the orchestral music, David Keane on the electro-acoustic music and a stylistic overview from William E. Benjamin — all copiously illustrated. George Rochberg's tribute to his friend of four decades contains a neat definition of the duty of a composer:

The intensities music embodies [...] must be lived an experienced to be real in those who make them and those who receive them. Our job is to put a little beauty out there in the world. Istvan Anhalt is one of our generation who has made music such a living reality, who has put some beauty into the world.

The 40+ compositions listed in the catalogue at the back — it includes four operas — underline how much of this beauty still has to gain a wide hearing. This elegant, handsome book can only speed that process.