Stephen (István) Heller

 

Dear friends of piano music,

true geniuses are usually misunderstood during their lifetime, because they are ahead of their time and therefore incomprehensible to most contemporaries. Great popularity, on the other hand, could indicate the opposite, a mediocrity that hits the mass taste with easily accessible pleasing works.

This picture hangs over my piano. Even if I could afford a more important work - I cannot constantly face an ingenious masterpiece, find myself reading the newspaper or vacuuming with the highest perfection, the last things, my own inadequacy and finiteness. I prefer a “pretty” picture, the pleasant sight of which relaxes me.

Stephen Heller was a very successful composer during his lifetime who could actually live make a living from his works. Today his work is largely forgotten, and there are sometimes bad reviews - he is pale, irrelevant, shallow. I think of him as my picture - his music is pleasant and relaxing. I like it.

Kind regards Kerstin