When you play music, the public should not admire your instrumental abilities but rather forget that you play the flute.

András Adorján is a renowned European flutist who was born in Budapest, grew up in Copenhagen, and has lived in Munich since 1974. After obtaining a diploma in dentistry, he switched to the flute and pursued his studies with Jean-Pierre Rampal and Aurèle Nicolet.
Laureate of the flute competitions in Montreux (1968) and in Paris (1971), he has been principal flutist of important orchestras in Stockholm, Cologne, Baden-Baden, and Munich. He has taught at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and the Musikhochschule in Munich.

Besides an extensive list of more than 100 recordings for various labels, Adorján is an editor of "Lexikon der Flöte" (Laaber Verlag, 2009): a unique encyclopedia of flute, covering a wide range of content with over 800 entries, and providing context of classical European music.
He is also a co-writer of the just-published most extensive biography of the Danish flutist Joachim Andersen (1847-1909), “Joachim Andersen Flutist, Conductor, and Composer of More Than the Etudes”, Oxford University Press, 2025).
Since 1985, he has served as the president of the German Flute Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Flöte).

We met András during the DOPPLERIADE Flute event 2025 in Luxembourg, hosted by Carlo Jans and the Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg: celebrating virtuosity of Franz and Carl, the Doppler brothers’ flute music, and wanted to know more about what it takes for a dentist to become a flutist, his Doppler music discoveries, the necessary qualities to succeed as a musician nowadays, and the most inspiring moments of his career.

You first studied dentistry but found a way to become one of the most prominent flutists we all know and admire. How did that happen? What led you to make that leap? 

My first choice was music, but in our family, there had never been a musician before. So, for my parents, especially for my mother, it was something too risky, too dangerous. She wanted me to get a diploma, which would enable me to earn my living after my studies. Of course, she liked music; she was very musical, but she didn’t know the daily life of a musician. This world was just unfamiliar to her understanding of how to make a safe living with it.
She didn’t feel well about it, and I must say that she was right in a sense, because you cannot learn to be lucky. You can learn everything on your instrument, you can be a good musician, but at some point, you also need luck – that is, to be at the right place and at the right moment. A diploma in music is no guarantee of a job.
Here I have to knock on wood since I have often had luck in my life. Still, it is always good to have an alternative. Even if I never really used this alternative. To make it short, I had to study dentistry first, to obey my mother’s wish. I did so and chose dentistry instead of becoming a doctor because medicine would have taken eight years, but dentistry only five years. My father was a surgeon, and my uncle was a dentist, so I knew what was in store for me.

I must say that dentistry has a little bit of similarity to the occupation with the flute because you work with precious metals, and with your fingers. Like music, it is a craftmanship, and you can immediately free people from pain (!).
Thus, I studied dentistry for five years, I got my diploma in July 1968, and in August, I left for Germany to study flute. Of course, it was a bit late because during those five years, I didn’t have much time to practice, and these are the most important years in the education of a musician.
I still try to catch up with it, and when people now ask me Why do you still play? I always answer, Because I lost all these years in my youth.

But when did you start to play the flute? At what age?

I was 12 when I started the flute in Budapest, but I only managed to get a few lessons before our family left Hungary, because of the revolution (Hungarian Revolution of 1956, nationwide uprising against the Soviet-imposed government that was brutally crushed by Soviet tanks), and settled in Denmark. In our new homeland – so different from my native country – I had to learn a new language, to discover and assimilate into a new culture, to find new friends, etc. It took some time for me to take up the flute again. We had brought it with us to Denmark, but it had remained in a drawer for about three years. Still, it kept calling my name, and, at the age of about 15, I started to take flute lessons again. 

When did you realize that dentistry is not for you? 

That was much later. At that time, when I was in school, I didn’t yet have any idea about what profession I would choose. As mentioned, I was 14, near 15, when I realized that I would like to continue to play the flute and started to take private lessons from time to time.
After finishing school, my wish was to study flute at the conservatory. That was the moment when my mother persuaded me to do something else instead. So, I chose dentistry, which took me five years to finish.
During that time, I really had very little time to practice. It was a very intense study during all 5 years. I had to be at the Dentist School from 8 o'clock in the morning till late afternoon, and when you got home at last, you were far too tired to start to practice the flute. I only managed to play my flute about one hour a week, which is far from enough. Still, I had flute lessons from time to time.
Then, at one point, a Danish friend who also played the flute and had been in Nice, in the summer Academy, told me about Rampal. He made me listen to some Rampal’s recordings, and it was a revelation. I absolutely wanted to meet and have lessons from him.
Then, every summer, during my dentistry studies, I went to Nice to have a masterclass with Mr. Rampal. And that inspired me to practice during each following year.

Now comes the interesting part. After having had my final dentistry exam, I was again in Nice, and I told Rampal that I had now finished my academic studies and wanted to study with him. I told him: Would you take me? He said, of course, I would like to teach you, but I am never at the same spot long enough. You cannot take the airplane with me and travel the world. You need a school to study. Why don't you go ask Mr. Nicolet? The Swiss flutist Aurèle Nicolet was his friend and another big name in flute playing.
Thus, with a recommendation from Rampal, I went to Freiburg to study with Nicolet.
I have really been lucky to be able to know and study with two of the best flutists of the 20th century.

You’ve spent years uncovering and reviving the works of the Doppler brothers. What drew you to their music? 

I discovered the Doppler brothers when my Danish flute teacher, at one lesson, showed me the Hungarian Pastoral Fantasy and proposed that I should learn it. Until then, I had never played Hungarian or Hungarian-sounding music. Of course, this is not Hungarian music as Kodály and Bartók described it. It is not genuine folk music. It is the kind of music that Hungarian Roma musicians used to play.
Their music was extremely popular at that time. It even inspired Brahms and Liszt, and many other composers, to write a similar kind of music. And I really liked it! It felt familiar to me without having ever heard it.
Then I started to look for the composers because even the name Doppler had until then been unfamiliar to me. I found him (Franz) in a lexicon and discovered that he also had a similarly famous flute-playing younger brother (Carl).

One day, when I went to the post office to call my parents (yes, at that time, to make a long-distance phone call, you had to go to the post office), I asked for the Stuttgart telephone directory, and there he was, the grandson of Carl Doppler!

He was a retired violinist, who until then had never heard a note of music of his famous grandfather. I was the first one who introduced it to him. In the beginning, he was not as friendly as I hoped he would be, but I was stubborn and kept visiting him and was gradually able to gain his trust. One day, he surprised me by showing me what he had found in the attic of their home: the treasure I had hoped for.
Handwritten flute music of the Doppler brothers, including the manuscript of the entire material of a previously unpublished Concerto for two flutes and orchestra by the Doppler brothers. Once again, without luck, all my endurance wouldn’t have given any result.

You have performed with so many orchestras, ensembles, and students over the years. Can you recall some of the most special moments in your career?

One of the best moments of my musical life in an orchestra was probably what you saw here (an excerpt from Beethoven’s “Leonore” Ouverture No 3, Op. 72a from 17 October 1976 live recording shown during the DOPPLERIADE event) when Leonard Bernstein conducted the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for the first time, and I was the principal flutist. That was a highlight in my musical career. Because he was THÉ conductor. I have worked under many very good conductors, but he was just one level higher than the others. Not only because of his unique musicality and knowledge of the score, but also to a high degree because he conducted at the same technical level as the musicians who were sitting in the orchestra. Unfortunately, this is very seldom the case, and this can be very frustrating for an orchestra musician. There is no way to prove this. But a musician senses this immediately.

With all these young excellent conductors, this perhaps is changing now. The “old” ones may have had more personality, but that alone is not enough. You also need the ability to give a good first beat! Bernstein was the favorite for all of us.

What do you think matters the most for a player to stand out today? Because the competition is very severe.

The interesting thing in music is that even though we have many more competent, good instrumentalists today, the percentage of those who are great musicians as well hasn’t changed.
You can learn how to play your instrument perfectly – it is not easy, but possible for almost everybody – but this is not enough. One cannot teach you to become a musician. A teacher can only help to discover and develop your musicality.

Let me please repeat what I have often mentioned before: When you play music, the public should not admire your instrumental abilities but rather forget that you play the flute.

You have been very active besides playing flute, helping to create Yamaha's handmade flutes, writing a lexicon for the flute, discovering, recording, and publishing music. How do you see the flute world evolving now?

In fact, I am quite depressed.
It is probably not only the flute society that makes me depressed. Let me please explain. Young flutists and players of other instruments as well are not interested in getting new literature or playing anything different anymore. They play the same things all the time. I am making new editions because I try to enlarge the flute repertoire, and it is very depressing to see how little interest there is for it.
Let us, for example, take a favorite composer of most of today’s flutists, André Jolivet. Everybody wants to play his “Chant de Linos” but more or less only this one piece of his. But he has written much more music for the flute in different periods of his life. Nobody knows about it, and it seems that nobody wants to know it either.
This is how I experience this.
So, the more you know about the composer, the context of that piece, his other compositions, as well as the music of his contemporaries, the better you will play your “Chant de Linos”.
And this is true for all composers – not only for Jolivet.
When my students played Mozart concertos, I used to ask them: Do you know something else by Mozart? His piano concertos, his operas? Do you go to concerts? Do you see operas? The usual answer was “Oh no, I am sorry, I have no time, I must practice…”

You have kept an incredibly active schedule for decades. How do you manage such a pace? 

I can only say that I like what I am doing, and I even like the tiring part of it – the travelling, sleeping in a hotel, or meeting new people. I like to be on an airplane, I don't mind. I can sleep everywhere, and I can eat whatever. I also try to be a tourist, visit museums, and the countryside when I am on the road. The side effects of touring don’t hurt me because I love music and still like to play it.

Can you tell us the story of the Doppler Sonata? 

When I was asked by Schott to make a new edition of the Hungarian Pastoral Fantasy, I accepted it and asked for the manuscript.
I like to see what the composers wrote when it is possible. I like “Urtext”.
When I started to work on this edition and had received the manuscript from Schott, I also inquired if they still had correspondence in their archives between Doppler and Schott from the time of the publication of this piece.
Fortunately, they had kept letters. So, I received a letter in which Doppler wrote: “Dear Mr. Schott, today I am sending you the manuscripts of the “Hungarian Pastoral Fantasy”, Opus 26, my Sonata, Opus 25, and “Souvenir de Prague”, Opus 24…” I was very surprised to read about a “Sonata” with the Opus number 25, as we all know that his Opus 25 is the “Andante and Rondo” for two flutes and piano. How was this possible? A strange coincidence? I wrote back and asked: Do you by any chance still have the manuscript of the Sonata? Yes, they had it, and on the front page, Doppler had made a note: Please publish only the two last movements with the title Andante and Rondo, Opus 25. And so they did.
Other composers like Brahms would have asked to get the first two movements back, and he would have burnt them. But Doppler didn't.
Tomorrow (October 19, 2025), we are going to play this Sonata, Opus 25, in four movements. The first and the second movements are unknown as they had never been performed, and the Andante sounds so different when it is played after two fast movements.
I asked Schott to publish the Sonata with all four movements; they did, and it is now a very welcome addition to the romantic flute literature.
Unfortunately, its availability hasn’t been discovered by too many flutists yet – and thus it still remains more or less unknown – another example of the lack of curiosity of today’s flutists.
In my youth, we would have rushed to get and play any newly discovered music of a favorite composer of ours.

Can you now understand what makes me depressed?

On the other hand, I feel so lucky, happy, and proud that I have been able to discover and make accessible the only two “serious” flute compositions of the Doppler brothers. They form a frame around my Doppler research: the Concerto for two flutes and orchestra found in my youth in 1969, and the Sonata for two flutes and piano located just recently in 2016.