Download Dubrovački ljetni festival

Dubrovački ljetni festival
Dubrovnik Summer Festival
2000
Croatia Hrvatska
Mađarska nacionalna filharmonija
Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra
Zsolt Hamar
dirigent conductor
Solist Soloist
Zoltán Kocsis
glasovir piano
Franjevačka crkva
Franciscan Church
25. kolovoza August, 25th 21.30
9.30 p.m.
Zoltàn Kodàly:
Plesovi iz Galante
Dances from Galanta
Lento - Andante maestoso
Allegretto moderato
Allegro con moto, grazioso
Allegro
Allegrovive
Franz Liszt:
Prvi koncert za glasovir i orkestar u Es-duru, S. 124
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, S. 124
Allegro maestoso - Tempo giusto
Quasi adagio
Allegretto vivace
Allegro marziale animato - Presto
***
Robert Schumann:
4. simfonija u d-molu, op. 120
Symphony No. 4 in d minor, Op 120
Prilično polagano - Živahno Very slow - Vivacious
Romanca (Prilično polagano) Romance (Very slow)
Scherzo (Živahno) Scherzo (Vivacious)
Polagano - Živahno Slow - Vivacious
In Budapest in 1923 Deszö Bor
founded The Orchestra of the
Capital, precursor of today's
Hungarian National Philharmonic.
At first it was composed of nonprofessional musicians, public servants and musical amateurs. A
Budapest Concert Orchestra of
young professional musicians was
formed in 1930, coached by Nandor
Zsolt at rehearsals, but its concerts
were conducted by reputable
visiting artists - its very first public
appearance happened under the
baton of Bruno Walter. In 1939
Budapest City Board decided on an
enlargement of the Orchestra of the
Capital, which in practice meant that
the young orchestra would be
disbanded. After World War II the
leadership of the Orchestra was
assigned to Ferenc Fricsay and
Laszlo Somogyi, with frequent
guest-appearances of Otto
Klemperer. In 1952 the Orchestra
was reorganized radically and the
body of some ninety musicians was
given the name of the State Concert
Orchestra, under the leadership of
Janos Ferenscik (till his death in
1984). Over the three decades the
Orchestra has toured almost the
entire world, with its standard
repertoire and a special prominence
of Hungarian music. In 1963 it
appeared with Igor Stravinsky, for
instance. The list of famous conductors and soloists that have
appeared with the Orchestra is long,
featuring, among others, Ernest
Ansermet, Sir John Barbirolli, Antal
Dorati, Christoph von Dohnanyi,
Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado, Lorin
Maazel, Svjatoslav Richter, Lord
Yehudi Menuhin, Anja Silja, Janos
Starker, Ruggiero Ricci, etc. In
1987, after a shorter period of
transition, its chief-conductor was
found in the winner of Hungarian TV
1st Competition in Conducting KenIchiro Kobayashi, with Ervin Lukacs
as Musical Director. The nominations yielded a decade of many
successful concerts and extensive
touring, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi is
lifetime honorary chief-conductor. In
autumn 1997 the artistic leadership
was taken over by Zoltán Koscis,
with Zsolt Hammar as first
conductor. A short time ago, Yuri
Simonov and Peter Eötvös, also the
adviser for modern repertory, were
appointed conductors-in-ordinary.
On 1 January 1998 the Orchestra,
now incorporating the Hungarian
National Choir, became the basic
national musical institution under
the name of Hungarian National
Philharmonic.
The conductor Zsolt Hamar (1968)
began playing piano at the age of
six. Later he studied composition at
the Budapest Béla Bartók
Conservatory, whereupon he graduated in composition with Emil
Petrovics and in conducting with
Ervin Lukács and Tamás Gáll from
the Ferenc Liszt Musical University
this year. In 1995 he won Second
Prize and Audience Award at the
8th Competition in Conducting of
the Hungarian TV. The following
year he was placed second at the
International Competition in
Cadaques (Spain), and in 1997 he
won the International Competition in
Conducting of the Portuguese
Radio. He spent one year as assistant to Tamás Vásáry at Hungarian
Radio Symphony Orchestra and as
coach of the namesake Youth
Orchestra. He has appeared with
other reputable Budapest orchestras, including the Orchestra of the
Budapest Philharmonic Society and
the MATÁV Symphony Orchestra,
the Pecs Philharmonic and as guest
conductor with the Budapest and
Debrecen Opera Houses. In autumn
1997 Zsolt Hamar was appointed
the first conductor in residence of
the Hungarian National
Philharmonic Orchestra.
The Hungarian pianist, composer,
conductor and musical writer Zoltán
Koscis (1952) got his first piano
lessons at the age of five. In 1963
he enrolled the Budapest Bartók
Béla Conservatory to study piano
and composition, whereupon in
1968 he went to study at the
Budapest Ferenc Liszt Musical
Academy (Musical University as of
2000) with Pal Kados and Ferenc
Rados. Two years after the graduation, he became professor at the
same institution. The doors to
world's most renowned concert
halls were opened to him after his
victory at the Beethoven
International Piano Competition of
the Hungarian Radio in Budapest
(1970), followed by acclaimed tours
to the US, Canada, Japan and the
Far East, with brilliant concerts at
Carnegie Hall in New York and the
Kennedy Center in Washington with
orchestras of Chicago and San
Francisco, the New York
Philharmonic and with the leading
orchestras of Canada. In Europe,
Zoltán Koscis raised to fame with his
recitals, as well as with concerts
with Berlin, Vienna and London
Philharmonic Orchestras. He has
taken part at most prestigious
festivals, with the greatest
conductors of our time (Claudio
Abbado, Christoph von Dohnanyi,
Edo de Waart, Charles Mackerras,
Lovro von Matačić, Charles Dutoit,
Herbert Blomstedt, Michael Tilson
Thomas, etc). In 1983 he founded
the Budapest Festival Orchestra,
together with Ivan Ficher and
remained its arts co-director until
1997. He made his debut as
conductor in 1987, and his
composing output has been
acclaimed and published worldwide.
Zoltán Koscis is also a highly
esteemed publisher and a much
searched for leader of master
classes. His discography is ample
(releases of Denon, Hungaroton,
Nippon Columbia, Phonogram,
Quintana, in recent times in
exclusive by Philips Classics) and
awarded, including Edison Award
for Bartók’s works for piano and
orchestra (with Ivan Ficher and
Budapest Festival Orchestra. The
Gramohpone Magazine proclaimed
his recording of Debussy's piano
recording of the year. In autumn
1997 Zoltán Koscis was appointed
Arts Director of the Hungarian
National Philharmonic, where his
engagement has enlarged the
repertoire with a number of valuable
musical works performed in
Hungary for the first time.
In order for a composer of national
direction to become respected, he
must teach his audience its own
musical speech, a job affordable
only through persistent promotion of
popular art. This is the cognitive
essence of the Hungarian composer
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967). Early
on, he directed his attention to the
singing word, and took to the far
more serious undertake of
transcription of popular dancing
instrumental music at a later stage.
The crown of the engagement is
double: The Dances from
Marosszék (1930) and The Dances
from Galanta (1933), not only as
relevant denominators in his own
output, but equally in the output off
all his followers. Both works have
much in common: a smaller
ensemble, shaped in a Rondo form
with a large, fast Coda, a slow,
proud dancing motive as a returning
motive of the Rondo with playful
episodes clutched in between.
However, unlike the purely popular
material in The Dances from
Marosszek, the building material of
the Dances from Galanta is a
peculiar arrangement of the themes
that appeared in several collections
in Vienna around 1800. There is the
introduction, five dances and the
finale. Kodály's skilful technique
amplifies the expression of the
arias, their colour, rapture,
melancholy and litheness. The
movements flow in continuation,
sometimes contrasted, with the
perpetually present leading motive
from the first dance. The most
expressive instrument is the
clarinet, while the finale occupies
the entire second half, for which it
could stand as a veritable
independent piece. The work closes
with four syncopated octave shifts
drifting into an abyss.
Franz Liszt (1811 -1886), the most
famous of pianists of all times, was
also a relevant innovator in many
fields of music, from composing to
musicology and organization. The
founder of the New-German school
of composition gave final and fatal
blow to the conservative musical
forces of his time with his different
approach and understanding of
programme music, the motive and
the form, the colour and the
orchestration, performing
techniques and the style. Hand in
hand with Berlioz, Liszt appeared as
the author perceiving development
in the breaking of the schemes, in
dissolution of concepts, in a key role
of a re-arrangement of categories.
The floor was so taken by the
discoverer performing veritable
musical cataclysms before the eyes
and ears of the tinsel-town listener
for the sake of the freedom of
music, 'by the first artist of his
century to believe in the elementary
and rough power of pure sound and
rhythm.' Precious is Liszt's
contribution to the expressive
abilities of the piano which with him
develops into a buoyant source of
sound, almost at equal to the organ
or, Indeed, to one full orchestra.
Liszt completed his Piano
Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, S.
124 in Weimar in 1849, after some
intensive revisions and two
additional, thorough rearrangements (1853,1856). The first per-
formance took place at the legendary concert, with Liszt at the
piano and Hector Berlioz
conducting, in Weimar on 17
February 1885. A true fourmovement symphony, a dramatic
incessant struggle between two
equal interlocutors is built upon the
classical pattern with a Scherzo
interpolated between the slow
movement and the finale. Main
motives, entire motives, indeed,
repeated throughout the concerto,
let Liszt not only solidify the
connections between the
movements and the homogeneity of
the composition, but also to lay the
fundaments for the Wagnerian
technique of the leading motive.
The signal for the beginning of the
musical action is given by an
impressive motive delivered by the
orchestra. The whole first
movement is constructed upon two
appealing, yet contrasted basic
ideas. A real virtuoso galore of the
solo part is not there for its won
sake, but it is an auxiliary means for
some deeper artistic questions. The
second, slow movement is laid upon
a broad melody presented by the
orchestra and analyzed by the
piano. The third movement is a
Scherzo, nervous and sketchy,
occasionally even grotesque. The
initial cadenza of the first movement
liaisons the Scherzo with the closing
part announced by a decisive,
marching variation of the motive
from the second movement. All the
motives presented that far whirl in
the finale spiralling up to dazzling,
triumphant sounds of the closing
stretta.
"Oh yes, I was sure, he had started
a new symphony. Even before he
would say anything, by Robert's
attitude and the D minor resounding
wildly in the distance, I knew
something new was coming out of
his soul" says the page in Clara
Schumann's diary of 31 May 1841.
When the score was completed
signed as Second Symphony on
September 15 the same year,
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
proudly presented it as a birthday
present to his wife. The Symphony
was first performed not long after.
However, Schumann was not happy
with its sound and a period of
troubles was only to begin. He
wrote in his diary: " One thing
makes me happy: the cognition that
I am still far from the target and that
I must struggle to work the best I
can; I have a feeling I have energy
enough to reach what I intend to".
Schumann was coming back to the
Second Symphony for over ten
years, only to rearrange it completely in 1851, and to have it published two years later, too, now as
Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120.
Free by its concept, it should be
called free fantasy the sign
Schumann took away after some
time. Although formally a complete
negation of the classical symphonic
scheme, the Symphony is a unique
example of wholesomeness and
compactness achieved through
development of thematic material
from one single cell appearing at
the very beginning. The main
characteristics: aggressiveness and
Beethovenian, epic enthusiasm rare
for such a lyrical author as
Schumann In the first movement; an
imaginative amplification - with a
peculiar mockery to strict canon
imitations - into the by-gone 18th
century and the sound of the
English Beggar's Opera in the
Scherzo (neither Leveridge, nor
Shield could have created a more
truthful atmosphere and a more
typical bucolic melody with all their
power); the preparation of the final
rapture with a bridge of slow motion,
a gimmick taken over from
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
Wagner did not understand the
matter when referring to this huge
mottled wheel rolling in a simple joy
of playing as to 'banal'. This was the
moment when the climax of
Schumann's symphony and his life
had come to a halt, the moment in
which David's allies won over the
Philistines, even if for just a tiny
instant.
D. Detoni