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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