Fricsay,    Human Being and Artist

Compassion for his fellow-creatures paired with a great sensitivity for the inward world of others made Ferenc Fricsay a unique person.

In friendship and love, in the arts and in his beliefs he saw through the surfaces of the casual or superficial to the very core. Isn’t the ability to experience joy and sorrow so deeply the quality that illuminates up the beauty of a human being, quite independent of race, social rank and talent?

Only very strong natures such as Ferenc Fricsay, imaginative and rooted in a superior world, have the ability to burst the glass wall of fame that surrounds them and break the encircling stonewall brought about by illness.

Born with an open perception for his fellow-creatures, he admired God’s ingenuity to create billions of people, not one with the same face as another. As an artist his relationship to human beings and things was a cheerful one. He didn’t like rigid conventions and narrow mindedness, but he also disliked the irrelevant and sentimental, these cheap feelings of commercial nature. The vivid use of the personal “you” lent his letters and conversation a unique magic. It is something quite different whether if one is accepted or understood by a person. The latter means more: Nearness without trivial tenderness, respect without indifference.

This volcano-like human being was a magician of conversation and friendship.

I corresponded with him in his last two years. His letters, written in a passionate handwriting resembled living creatures. One had the feeling the sender himself is entering the room. In his letters one never felt much concern about literary perfection or a strain of labour, but always the hot creative breath and an inclination to the big format.  
                                                                                                     
                                                                                      Zenta Maurina (Philosopher and Author)