Miloš Betko

“Betko's musical thinking is inextricably linked to visual perception. Nearly every composition is a mixture of music, stage action, random events and relationships between actors (hidden and also quite obvious) that in a special way blurs the line between superficial reality and stylized ritual. Betkos' compositions aren't interpreted, they will happen. Very important for this author is the actual title of composition, which encrypts its essence. Each piece has, in addition to the title, which is sometimes an open statement and sometimes cryptogram, a conceptual subtitle. Players and actors represent themselves, but also kinds of abstract entities, performing other activities in addition to playing an instrument. Every detail receives a special meaning, for example a musical instrument is once a subject (in classical playing), and sometimes it is an object (if it hangs on the rope in front of the player). If the criterion of the theater event there is a simultaneous course of two factors – the current in the audience and the virtual on the stage – and if we look at the so-called happening as the fusion of art work with reality, with what is here now, then we can place Betkos' compositions somewhere in between these poles. The particular value of this music is an emotional dimension, which is enforced already at the first contact with it despite the overall materiality to depersonalization of the action on the stage. At first sight bizarre situations have the ability to invoke different associations, which may not always be just comical.”

(ZAGAR, Peter: Miloš Betko. In: 100 slovenských skladateľov. Ed. Marián Jurík, Peter Zagar. Bratislava : Národné hudobné centrum, 1998, p. 49.)