Hungary’s Bartok Legacy

Hungary’s Bartok Legacy

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Las Vegas is on the classical map!

Tonight's guest performance by the Hungarian National Philharmonic adds another world-class orchestra to the list of those that have graced our city's cultural scene. Led by conductor and music director Zoltán Kocsis, the group performed works by Bartók, Mozart, and Dvorák before a full house at UNLV's Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall.

Hungarians must be gifted dancers. The orchestra opened with the "Dance Suite" by Béla Bartók, but unless you're really good on your feet, you might want to sit this one out. The tempo changed constantly, and there were many brief pauses followed by sudden changes in rhythm and mood. I could barely keep up! Bartók made great use of many different instruments in this 1923 work. It started in a rather mischievous mood, featuring low bassoon and a brief tuba solo. The sound was sparse at first but soon filled in with the violins providing a pretty melody. The trombonists played some rather whimsical glissandos, using their slides to glide up or down from one note to another. Most orchestras tend to feature the French horns more, but in the Hungarian National Philharmonic, the trombones were ever-present, and their rich tones filled the hall.

Classical composers are such thieves! I've lost count of how many have ripped off old folk tunes for their works. Okay, I'm kidding - but old songs have long provided inspiration for wonderful orchestral adaptations. The evening's second piece was a suite of five songs from Bartók's "Twenty Hungarian Folksongs". In 1933 the composer added orchestral accompaniment to these five and stated, "These are not arrangements, but original compositions even though they made use of old folk melodies." Yeah, tell it to the judge, Béla.

What's a folk tune without a singer? Soprano Júlia Hajnóczy lent her clear voice to the five songs, entitled 'In Prison', 'An Old Bitter Song', 'Wedding Song I', 'Lament', and 'Wedding Song II'. She sang in Hungarian, of course, and it was too dark to follow the words in the program, but what struck me was the mood of each piece. The sad songs were beautiful and poetic but not at all dark, and the happy wedding songs were playful and intimate rather than exuberant and celebratory. The line "I am pretty Jani, aren't I, I am meant just for you" says it all. Perhaps Hungarian peasants were much more even-tempered than we might guess. Had these folk adaptations been written by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, we would have been dancing in the aisles one minute and looking for razor blades the next. Nobody does manic depression like the Russians.

Harold L. Weller, conductor of the Las Vegas Philharmonic, was right: there's no really good way to situate a piano for a piece like this next one. Maestro Kocsis is also an excellent pianist, and his podium was replaced at center-stage by a grand piano for Mozart's 'Concerto No. 17 in G Major'. Maestro Weller was talking about the problem of getting full volume from the instrument, but I was thinking about how it looked. I'm used to the conductor facing away from us, but when he's sitting at a piano, it seems rather strange. The upside, however, was the fun I had watching him play and conduct at the same time. As his eyes and hands constantly switched from one task to the other, he reminded me of a lady commuter trying to apply makeup in her rear-view mirror.

Ah, Mozart. The concerto sounded like a dance as much as the Bartók pieces did. Written in the three-movement style of the day, Wolfgang's concerto started "allegro," light and moderately fast, then relaxed in an "andante" second movement, then sped up again for the third movement - in this case "allegretto," accelerating to "presto" for the energetic finale. This translates into "dancing in the parlor, refreshing ourselves with a glass of wine, and then dancing out on the lawn." The concerto was played by an ensemble of strings and winds from the orchestra, with no percussion. The alternation between ensemble play and solo piano was smooth and precise and didn't break the flow of the music. We've all heard Mozart's wonderfully identifiable sound; I describe it as "All Europe in a good mood." I even saw some of the orchestra's musicians swaying to the gentle rhythms when they weren't playing. Mozart will do that to you. In my mind his music evokes elegant gatherings of happy Hapsburg aristocrats who don't care how hungry the even-tempered peasants are.

The Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra was formed in 1923 as the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra. Bartók's "Dance Suite" was commissioned that year in commemoration of the official union of the adjoining cities of Buda and Pest (probably because no one liked the name "Pest"). Zoltán Kocsis became conductor and music director in 1997 after 14 years heading the Budapest Festival Orchestra. More information is available at the Philharmonic's excellent website, www.hunphilharmonic.org.hu/index.asp?lang=EN. This link should get you to the English-language version (the one without all the accent marks).

Hearing the orchestra play Antonin Dvorak's 'Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major', and reading the program notes, I couldn't help thinking of wine tasting. The Symphony is said to contain influences of Richard Wagner (a really "big" cabernet), and Dvorak's work in general reportedly hints at his admiration for Beethoven (a complex burgundy), but what I tasted most in this piece was the peppery zinfandel of Tchaikovsky. The first movement contained powerful horns and sweeping strings, and with its constant shifts from intense to calm and back, it reminded me of the 1812 Overture without the cannons. The movement ended big with a rather climactic final chord reminiscent of the Swan Lake ballet suite. Like wine tasting, it's all rather subjective: "Did you taste the chocolate and blackberries in the finish?" Yeah.

During the pause, Maestro Kocsis (now only conducting) leaned back against the podium rail

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Rob LaGrone, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent – Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To book travel visit Jetstreams.com at www.jetstreams.com and for Beach Resorts visit Beach Booker at www.beachbooker.com

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Rob LaGrone, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent. Join the Travel Writers Network in the logo at www.jetsettersmagazine.com Leave Your email next to the logo for FREE e travel newsletter.