Also reviewed for Die Presse: Von wegen Touristenfallenkonzert! Eine überraschende Stichprobe im Wiener Musikverein
 C. Debussy Images, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Printemps P.Boulez, Cleveland (DG, 1992)  US | UK | DE |
 W.A. Mozart Concerto for Flute & Harp F.P, Orch.18thCt, Hünteler, Storck (Philips, 1996) US | UK | DE |
Tourist Concert – but First-Class!
A musical calling card from Pécs worth hearing, at the Musikverein
There’s that old joke where a tourist in New York asks a taxi driver, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The answer of course being: “Practice, practice, practice!” These days, it is perhaps a bit easier. Certainly anyone wanting to get on stage of the Musikverein needs, first and foremost, a plush enouhg checking account. Though, of course, it does help if one has practiced as well. Seasoned Viennese concertgoers won’t likely stray into performances by (to take examples from the upcoming schedule) the doctors’ orchestra (better to see the dentist directly), the SchlossCapelle (Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on permanent loop), or the occasional youth orchestra itching to say it once played the famed Golden Hall. Tourists, however, will end up filling the seats. And perhaps a few local concert-novices, too. Either way, those, too (or especially?!) ought to be given a good first impression.So how about a little spot check?! And why not pick a concert by the “Pannon Philharmonic”? Sounds Hungarian (it is!) - and the experiences with Hungarian orchestras has been pretty great, lately. The “Pannon Filharmonikusok” hail from Pécs, the university town and episcopal seat in southwest Hungary that musically serves the part of the conuntry below Laka Balaton to the Croation border, about five hours by car from Vienna. The orchestra, founded by the Viennese Johann Georg Lickl, has 115 years under its belt and boasts of playing at home in Hungary’s best acoustic: the Kodály Center, opened in 2010. That’s an attraction – as is the fact that Pécs lies just 30 kilometers north of Villány, Hungary’s finest red-wine region.
As part of the “Music of the Masters” concert series organized by the “Volksbildungskreis” (a charmingly old-fashioned, still-plucky relic of bourgeois self-improvement), the orchestra has been appearing at the Musikverein regularly for a couple years now. Saturday night brought a program understandably geared toward popularity for such a series – a set of classical “greatest hits”: Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, and in between the lovely Mozart concerto for flute and harp.
Ionarts recommended recording of Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique
“If we fall asleep during the Debussy,” joked one cellist, “it’ll be because of the Wiener Schnitzel we were served right after arriving.” No one in the orchestra fell asleep, at least. Nor, presumably, anyone in the audience – because this was no tourist-trap concert at all. What was delivered here was genuinely good: far beyond merely exceeding low expectations. Led in the Debussy by a first-rate flute, cushioned by a homogeneous, flexible string sound, the orchestra under chief conductor Gergely Kessekyák presented itself as romantic, clean, charming – indeed, unreasonably good. Nor did the orchestra put a foot wrong in the Berlioz (one wobble of the entire evening), playing with joy rather than routine. Mozart, wedged between the French Romantics, was somewhat overpowered and lost in the middle but not poorly played for all that. Viennese audiences may still stay away – but for the Volksbildungskreis and stray tourists, this orchestra is a real boon.
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