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Miklós Spányi has had concerts in most European countries and has won first prize in two international harpsichord competitions. He now teaches at Oulu Conservatory.
Coming to Finland
‘Living jobless in Hungary during the last hours of the Communist system was a very hard time’ he says with his perfect English. ‘That’s why I had to leave and I went to study to Germany where I spent one year.’
After realizing that Germany was also a difficult place to find a job as an organist, he heard about an opportunity in Oulu through some Finnish friends. Miklós, who knew almost nothing about Oulu, moved to Liminka and started working as a teacher of organs and other instruments at the Oulu Conservatory. ‘It was like a gift from heaven, but very far from Hungary!’
His work includes giving personal lessons to students from 14 to 50 years old.
‘It’s just like teaching any other instrument with the difference that I concentrate on 17th and 18th century music and the instruments like harpsichord, clavichord, tangent piano and fortepiano’ he smiles. ‘Bach . . . is just great! What he did is perfection. It’s magnificent! Everything he did! The works are so complex but there isn’t a single note out of place. It’s just perfect.’
He began to like Baroque music as a child when he learnt the piano. By the age of sixteen he was learning to play the harpsichord.
No discussions about music
He finds Finnish life a lot more organized than in Hungary. His impression is that Finns think before they do something. ‘They can imitate things very precisely and develop them in a certain sense.’
One thing he misses most from Hungary are his colleagues, musicians and the discussions about music they had. ‘Here there are no discussions about music, not even among my colleagues in the Conservatory. We just come and go and say hello to each other. But I think it’s very different in Helsinki. There after a concert people go to a café and can talk about the concert they just heard for a few hours!’
‘One positive thing in Finland is the coffee’ Miklós says, ‘I didn’t drink much coffee in Hungary because the quality was so bad but from the first moment I tried it I have liked this long Finnish coffee. It’s first class coffee!’ he adds.
From past to present
One of the strangest things in Miklós’ opinion was the reorganization of the Finnish music education some 10 years ago. Then ‘the so called University of Applied Sciences took our professional students which were at the highest level of music education. This was not so positive for me.’ He continues that ‘before church music was an important part within Oulu Conservatory and many students played organ, harpsichord and clavichord.’ And the situation at the moment is not looking good because the
 Conservatory doesn’t have enough professional students and ‘we have to fight for them.’ In his opinion the reconstruction of the music education was quite shocking because the old system functioned very well. He guesses that the changes were made because of the harmonization of the whole European education system of music but as he says ‘it was finally up to the cities to decide how they will organize their music education within the city. In Oulu they wanted to separate the Conservatory and the high schools systems which meant catastrophe for both schools because now neither has enough students.’
But when asked about organs in Oulu, his eyes light-up. Apparently, there is a very good organ in Oulu. ‘There is an excellent organ in Tuperi (sp) Hall, in the organ hall of the Polytechnic. It is a copy of organ made by Gottfried Zelbum (sp), one of the most famous organ-makers in central Europe at the time of Bach. They made it three years ago and they were very strict in following the original design.’ For Miklos, the sound just isn’t quite right with modern electric organs.
He’s also been impressed by the city’s orchestra, ‘It’s a very good orchestra for a town like Oulu’ he tells me. Though he does feel that they’re getting a bit ‘popular’ these days, playing operettas and so on. For Miklos, you need to stick with mathematical beauty of classical music.
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