Following our presentation of Béla Tarr’s cinematic masterpiece Sátántangó in March 2023, with original composer and lead actor Mihály Víg in attendance, we are glad to welcome him back to silent green — this time with his influential underground band Balaton.
Formed by Mihály Víg and Károly Hunyadi in 1979, Balaton became the cornerstone of Budapest’s underground music movement throughout the 1980s, performing their first concert in the courtyard of a psychiatric outpatient clinic.
In the same year, Víg joined the hugely influential trabant, and thereafter began one of the great director-composer relationships in his work with Béla Tarr. It is this work for which he is best known internationally: composing the scores for films including Damnation, Werckmeister Harmonies, and Satantango — in which he also acts in the main role. Víg will perform with Balaton the songs from the films of Béla Tarr, alongside their own catalogue, and that of trabant.
In simple, poetic language, using universal themes such as love and freedom, Víg’s lyrics enter into a symbiotic relationship with his music, letting the pieces reveal themselves as intimately as necessary. In 1996 a collection of his lyrics and prose pieces was published under the title »Versek és novellák« (t: Verse and novellas).
For the film The Man from London he received the EU XXL film Award. As the jury wrote in their evaluation, they honoured »a composer whose musical work in films – in longstanding collaboration with director Béla Tarr – sets itself apart by cutting down to the essence. Their most recent collaborative work [gives a sense of] the impact of Víg’s minimalist and unbelievably catchy feel for notes and tones.«
Víg has also composed music to accompany stage plays. He has been given numerous awards, including the critics’ award for best music by the Hungarian film festival in Budapest. He is a knight of the Hungarian Republic.
