The Belgian of Szentendre

Opposite the Central Station in Brussels, at the entrance from the ‘Spanjeplein’, a statue of 20^th century Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was inaugurated in 1995. It was a gift from the city of Budapest on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Bartók's death.

That year, a series of concerts ‘Jubilate Hungaria 95’ around the music of Bartók was also organized in Brussels. This unusually beautiful modern statue of Bartók (by Imre Varga) can be easily missed in this rather accidental open space. Only a couple of weeks ago, on September 26, a commemoration took place there on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the death of Béla Bartók.

Inspiration by Bartók
Since 2015, the Balassi institute (the Cultural institute of the Embassy of Hungary in Brussels) organizes the Bartók Festival every year. It is amazing to see how much the work of Bartók still influences contemporary artists to this day. For example, the famous Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker created a well-known choreography using his music. She titled the piece ‘Bartók/Aantekeningen’ and presented it in 1986 in Brussels.

Becoming a Bartók expert
However, only few people know that there is another special connection between Béla Bartók and Belgium. Music has always been an important part of the cultural contacts between our countries since early official bilateral diplomatic relations. In this regard, it is a Belgian priest, Denijs Dille (1904-2005) who deserves a special mention. Mr. Dille met with Hungarian musician Béla Bartók for the first time in 1937, after which he became ever more connected with the Hungarian composer’s life. Dille gave lectures and published books about Bartók’s work. After the death of Bartók, in 1945, Dille became a Bartók expert and undertook several trips to Hungary to dig through all sorts of archive material to publish several new books about the life and work of Bartók. In 1960, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences offered him a job as head of the (to be founded by Dille) Béla Bartók Archives in Budapest. Denijs Dille also served as the founder of the Bartók Archive in the Royal Albertina Library of Brussels. Next to Béla Bartók, Dille was also close friends with Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály. The contributions of Mr. Dille to the legacy of Bartók (the archives, books, scientific assessments about his work, etc.) are of enormous value to this very day.

The Belgian of Szentendre
Denijs Dille was a well-respected academic scholar and his work embodies another, often unknown, aspect of cultural bilateral relations between our two countries. To commemorate the contributions of Denijs Dille to the musical heritage of Béla Bartók, there is a memorial plate in Szentendre, where Dille lived after moving to Hungary for his work on Béla Bartók. It was erected by the town of Szentendre with the donations of Lajos Pap and the Rodin Gallery Cafe on the last day of the Bartók memorial-year, September 26, 2006.
It is often these personal stories and anecdotes that spice up the relations between two countries. Whenever I have the chance, I take visitors from Belgium – both official and private – to Szentendre. The cobbled streets, the historical buildings, the main square, the magnificent view from the church hill on the historical center, the walks on the Danube promenade, the Szentendre Japanese Garden… There is so much to see and experience for young and old…. Our visitors from Belgium fall in love with Szentendre every time. But when I tell them the story of Denijs Dille who lost his heart to Hungary and more specifically to the music of Béla Bartók and Szentendre, it is really the icing on the cake!

(Ambassador Peinen wishes to thank Mr. Thomas Bresseleers, intern at the Belgian Embassy in Budapest in 2018, for his research on this topic.)