A Stunning Orchestral Surprise in Budapest

A Budapest Miracle? Concerto Budapest's "Wow" Moment

Budapest, March 27, 2019: Müpa: Ever since Budapest’s new concert hall—known as “Müpa” or “Palace of Arts”—with its combination of high-tech echo chambers and its traditional common-sense “shoebox” design opened in 2005, I’ve wanted to hear it in action. Located at the edge of downtown—alongside the Danube, right next to the comically hideous 2002 National Theater—it is not an imposing building from the outside, but welcoming and logically laid out on the inside. The main hall, the Bartók National Concert Hall, is a soft-curved wooden shoebox with a very sensible capacity of 1700. Its acoustic was overseen by Russell Johnson. The massive organ, built by the Pécs Organ Manufactory and Mühleisen Stuttgart, features an imposing prospect—including a battery of pipes protruding from the façade—and is one of the largest of its kind.

Along the walls above the upper tier—vaguely colored like a Scottish tartan—are the resonance boxes that can be closed or opened to give the desired length of reverb for the program at hand. Although closed on this occasion in late March, they are apparently in regular use—in contrast to fancy features like the Sala São Paulo’s adjustable ceiling, which is very cool in theory but hardly used in practice. Now: one visit to a concert hall cannot begin to give an adequate idea of its acoustic. But this one impression of hearing the Concerto Budapest, one of five symphony orchestras in Budapest, suggested that at its best, the acoustic is superb.

The Rambunctious Joy that is King Ubu’s Dinner Music

BAZi, 'Ubu Music', Symphony in One Movement, Giostra Genovese, Concerto for Strings P.Hirsch/WDR-SO Wergo

And what a concert it was. More specifically: What a first half! On the far side of intermission, a very finely played, generally soft-edged Rite of Spring awaited the listeners, full of well-shaped individual contributions, sexy contrabassoon notes, and fierce highlights. It didn’t have the ferocious bite I look for in the work, delivering—*de gustibus*—rather urbane suaveness instead. A bit like the Concertgebouw Orchestra might play that work. Indeed, like in Amsterdam, the perception may have been shaped by the acoustic which gave the impression of some orchestral energy dissipating upwards: even the greatest *fff* climaxes were not shrill or harsh or even particularly loud.

It would have been a more impressive performance, hadn’t that first half rocked as hard and delighted as much. Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu—which incidentally throws out a quote from Le Sacre right off the bat on the organ—is a tumultuous, riotous, quintessential musical collage: None of the music is, *en détail*, original. But collectively the phrases as put together by Zimmermann, create a unique, decidedly original work.

It certainly sounds, in parts, like a “who’s that composer” guessing game. But more to the point, it is a riveting, compelling work all of its own which has, not in any individual incident but structurally, parallels in the music of Gustav Mahler and Charles Ives. And then there are four solo basses fiddling for their life up front in episodes that make Mahler’s “Frère Jacques” episode seem like child’s play. Perhaps most notably, instead of being doom-and-gloom as one would might reasonably expect from the composer of the *Ecclesiastical Action* (“I turned and beheld all the injustice perpetrated under the sun”), it is very often very funny. The classical bits (from plainchant to Stockhausen’s banging, repetitive chords of Klavierstück IX, and with plenty Wagner in the middle) are interrupted by Jazz-outbreaks that sound like someone turned the knob on the radio… eventually blending it with a medieval flute consort and then an ever-increasing amount of musical layers. E-guitars and basses are thrown into the mix, too. Altogether a bit like someone was taking Schnittke, Purcell, Monty Python and started juggling. What a joy!

Supple Pianism and a Lesson in Orchestral Alertness

J.Brahms, F.Liszt & W.Lutosławski, Paganini Variations & Paganini Rhapsody Tzimon Barto/Schleswig-Holstein FO/C.Eschenbach Ondine

The rest of the front-loaded first half of the concert consisted of the two piano-and-orchestra humdingers, the Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Lutosławski’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini. Andrei Korobeinikov played with rare feeling: short notes were still soft-edged. There was no incident of harsh banging, although banging is certainly required by at least Rachmaninov. What a *very* pleasant surprise in works where technical efficiency and accuracy, however necessary, would be so very much insufficient.

If that hadn’t been enough for enthusiasm, the Concerto Budapest—long established but revived and raised to new heights by its current music director András Keller (of Keller Quartet fame)—performed with absurd accuracy and sensitivity. The turn-on-a-dime-agile brass was secure; the strings warm and wispy-velvety in the true pianissimos; the woodwinds colorful. Moreover, the collective responded in such minute detail to Keller’s instructions that it just about took your breath away. Climaxes were approached not with a permanent swell but only quick peaks followed by an immediate and gentle receding of the strings. It’s just the way you think a string quartet player would want to make his orchestra play. You just don’t think he’d actually achieve it. Astonishing… just as it was impressive how the band could disappear into the background by becoming pure atmosphere—both in the pointillism of Lutosławski and the Delacroix-like tone painting of Rachmaninov. At one point I pinched myself: Is it really that good or am I hearing things?

After the concert an exhausted Keller said, with refreshingly level-headed pride: “They really are that good. And they play more than 40 programs – not concerts: programs! – a year. I think Concerto Budapest can claim to be the second best orchestra in Budapest [after Iván Fischer’s Budapest Festival Orchestra].” A second-best—assuming this concert was not a positive outlier—that would be the very best in most cities. I know I’ll keep my ears peeled for them.

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#morninglistening: Polish Goodies from Berlin

#morninglistening to @BerlinPhil w/K.Zimerman in #Lutoslawski on @dgclassics. Outstanding.… https://t.co/BgyUOTLWSQ pic.twitter.com/JXmxmkNgmQ

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) December 7, 2015

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#morninglistening: Lutosławski-Szymanowski Combo

#morninglistening #Lutoslawski #Szymanowski @AccentusMusic
A.Liebreich #Polish Ntl. RSO Ew… http://t.co/QfHBM6j7rM pic.twitter.com/Tqnj3QBnjf

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) February 14, 2015

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Two Pianos, Naughton Twins

Piano Duets, Christina and Michelle Naughton (Orfeo, 2012)

Charles T. Downey, Christina and Michelle Naughton, twin piano act, are perfectly in sync at Kennedy Center (Washington Post, November 15, 2014)

College friends of mine who were identical twin sisters and both music majors used to claim they could communicate secretly with each other when they performed together. By this they were poking fun at other people’s often rude curiosity about what it was like to be an identical twin. Other twins embrace this phenomenon, like Christina and Michelle Naughton, one of several piano duos formed by identical twins. They gave a recital on the Fortas Chamber Music series at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Thursday night.

There were hints of the circus act in their performance of music for two pianos... [Continue reading]

Christina and Michelle Naughton, piano duo
Brahms, Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Debussy, En blanc et noir
Lutosławski, Variations on a Theme of Paganini
Stravinsky, Rite of Spring
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Dip Your Ears, No. 143 (Jansons' Lutosławski & Friends)

Lutosławski, Szymanowski, A.Tchaikovsky , Cto. for Orchestra, Sy.#3, Sy.#4 M.Jansons / BRSO Rafał Bartmiński (tenor), Andreas Röhn (violin), Nimrod Guez (viola) BR Klassik

Lutosławski Touchstone

Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra is of a rare, invigorating quality: here pounding, there lyrical, then flitting like reveling grasshoppers. Success depends on painstaking precision, fitting each layer of different shades and timbres atop the next. Extreme virtuosity and difficulties stand in the service of the music and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons is suited to this challenge like few orchestras; the resulting live recordings is one of the finest of the Concerto yet. Szymanowski’s Third Symphony is a coupling on equal footing. Amid wordless chorus and ecstatic climaxes, the BRSO sounds at home and uncommonly full-bodied. Alexander (!) Tchaikovsky—not related—is a contemporary Jansons favorite; his post-Mahlerian Fourth Symphony for Viola and Chorus makes clear why.

Made possible by Listen Music Magazine.

NSO Ends Season with a Modern Bang

W. Lutosławski, Concerto for Orchestra (inter alia), Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, W. Lutosławski (EMI)

The regular season of the National Symphony Orchestra came to a memorable close last night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Before heading off for summer shits and giggles at Wolf Trap, the ensemble brought back Witold Lutosławski's virtuosic Concerto for Orchestra, not heard from the NSO since 1998, pairing it with the one-night-only local premiere of the new piano concerto by James MacMillan, Mysteries of Light, completed in 2008 and premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra in 2011. It was daring programming that rewarded the hard-working musicians, who gave one of their finer performances of the season.

It was a rare enough thing to have heard one Lutosławski piece performed this month, but two is pretty much unheard of around these parts. Where the later Trois poèmes d'Henri Michaux is experimental and just downright weird -- a good weird, but still -- the earlier Concerto for Orchestra is sheer delight, in harmonic adventure, melodic appeal, rhythmic complexity, and most of all, orchestrational variety. The word tour de force truly applies. Most of the melodic material comes from a collection of Polish folk songs, treated in a fragmented, repetitive, motivic way. Stasis is one of the piece's hallmarks, with an F# pedal in the opening of the first movement later pinged by the celesta in a section for woodwinds and high strings. The second movement's rushing runs were stunningly fast but with pleasing subtlety, down to the enigmatic coda in the double basses and percussion. The passacaglia of the third movement began suavely, shot through with bluesy touches, the many orchestral colors and metric shifts preventing the relentless triple meter from becoming monotonous.

This was the NSO debut of conductor Krzysztof Urbanski, who took over the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra after Mario Venzago's contract was not renewed. He had a clear beat and a no-nonsense way of helping the musicians shape the music, rarely seeming at odds with them. He did have a regrettable tendency to use his cue hand to give showy gestures, like little finger flicks for trills or grace notes here and there, which were meant only for the audience's benefit. Still, he coaxed some murky pianissimi from the musicians in the second movement of the first suite from Grieg's music for Peer Gynt, "Åse's death." The strings, in particular, had a unified and pretty sound in this piece, leading a manic dance in "In the Hall of the Mountain King."

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Polish conductor, Kennedy Center organ impress as NSO closes season (Washington Post, June 21) Robert Reilly, Second Opinion: NSO with Tough MacMillan Nuts, Lutosławski Excitement (Ionarts, June 21)

MacMillan's new piano concerto struck me in much the same way as his second piano concerto did, its five movements, each representing one of the Luminous Mysteries added to the Rosary by Pope John Paul II in 2002, forming a multistylistic melange. MacMillan's Catholic devotion was on display in the quotation of Gregorian chant, most prominently the incipit of the Ave Maria chant, heard in increasingly dissonant settings, often hammered out like a motto (some of the rest of the chant is heard later). At the keyboard, Jean-Yves Thibaudet handled the often frenetic solo part with aplomb, a sort of commentary, sometimes urgent and sometimes reflective, on the mishmash of sounds from the orchestra. Each mystery had odd touches: the brass fanfare and trombone chorale of "Miraculum in Cana," the piano's atonal bird songs (a tribute to another Catholic modernist, Olivier Messiaen) against lush low string strings in "Proclamatio Regni Dei," a hymn tune that rose above multimetric chaos in "Transfiguratio Domini Nostri." It would be hard to meditate to this music while praying the Rosary, which was not MacMillan's goal, but it made for fun and diverting listening.

The evening was capped by only the second "Postlude" recital on the new Kennedy Center Concert Hall Organ this season, a series that the NSO hopes to broaden next season. At the console was Russell J. Weismann, whom I know from my time singing in the choir at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, who charmed in both his spoken introductions to the pieces and how he played them. He brought out the instrument's many colors, including the rather awful "Filene" stop, the only set of pipes that was kept from the old instrument that this organ replaced. The brief recital concluded with a trashy showpiece, Dudley Buck's Concert Variations on the Star-Spangled Banner, which was everything I dreaded it would be. If you were wondering if the American national anthem's melody could be made into a fugue, wonder no longer.

This concert repeats tonight and tomorrow night, with Saint-Saëns's fifth piano concerto unfortunately replacing the MacMillan piece and no organ recital.

Second Opinion: NSO with Tough MacMillan Nuts, Lutosławski Excitement

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from The Kennedy Center.

Thursday night, at the Kennedy Center,the National Symphony Orchestra welcomed Polish conductor Krzysztof Urbanski in a program of Edvard Grieg, James MacMillan, and Witold Lutosławski.

Grieg’s Suite No.1 from Peer Gynt made for a nice curtain raiser and warm-up piece. It also revealed the style of the very young conductor, who only graduated from the Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw in 2007. Mr. Urbanski kept the beat with his baton in his right hand, and did a good deal of expressive sculpting with his left hand—almost as if he was playing it as an instrument. I don’t think this was an affectation and even if it was, it seemed to produce very good results. I was particularly struck by the second movement, Ase’s Death, which is a threnody for strings alone, with all but the double basses playing with mutes. The NSO string section positively glowed with warmth and feeling, down to the final, exquisite pianissimo. In the last movement, In the Hall of the Mountain King, Urbanski showed that he knew how to build a movement with the whole orchestra to an impressive climax.

Other Reviews: Charles Downey, NSO Ends Season with a Modern Bang (21.6.13)

I was very interested to hear MacMillan’s Piano Concerto No.3, which was composed for performing pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who premiered the piece with the Minnesota Orchestra in 2011. It has taken some time for me to be won over by this Scottish Catholic composer, but the work that finally did it was his Seven Last Words, an ineffably moving Good Friday meditation. Still, much of his music is difficult, and so were parts of this Concerto. (I would suggest that those who have assimilated the musical and extra-musical language of French composer Olivier Messiaen would not have much of a problem with it. The programmers at the NSO must have known that this was the case [Ed. or simply don’t trust their audience], which is why they have placed Saint-Saëns’ Concerto No. 5 in lieu of the MacMillan, for the remaining two performances of the program. The piece is subtitled The Mysteries of Light. MacMillan said he wished “to revive the ancient practice of writing based on the structure of the rosary”. The Mysteries of Light title is a reference to the Luminous Mysteries of the rosary introduced by Pope John Paul II in 2002. They are, in English: the baptism of Jesus Christ; the miracle in Cana; the proclamation of the reign of God; the Transfiguration of our Lord; and the institution of the Eucharist.The five movements are played continuously.

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Lutosławski's 'Trois poèmes d'Henri Michaux'

Charles T. Downey, At Strathmore, National Philharmonic’s Lutoslawski benefits from lacking Orff
Washington Post, June 11, 2013

Orff, Carmina Burana, G. Wand

The National Philharmonic marked the 100th anniversary of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski’s birth by giving what was billed as the local premiere of one of his landmark works, “Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux,” on Sunday at Strathmore.

It is a puzzling work, requiring two conductors to coordinate masses of semi-improvised sound from, on one side of the stage, an instrumental wing of winds, brass, two pianos and percussion, and, on the other, a whispering, moaning, keening and shouting small chorus, combined in a technique the composer called “aleatory counterpoint.” This may sound like chaos, and it was at times, but the music is carefully constructed to follow the tragic contour of Michaux’s hallucinogenic poetry, a story of troubled thoughts, a surreal battle punctuated with neologisms and melancholy resignation. [Continue reading]

National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale
Lutosławski, Trois poèmes d'Henri Michaux
Orff, Carmina Burana
Music Center at Strathmore

SEE ALSO:
Richard Taruskin, Orff's Musical And Moral Failings (New York Times, May 6, 2001)

Martin Kettle, Secret of the White Rose (The Guardian, January 1, 2009)

Anne-Sophie Mutter @ Strathmore

Mozart, Violin Sonatas, A.-S. Mutter, L. Orkis W. Lutosławski, Partita (inter alia), A.-S. Mutter, BBC Symphony Orchestra, W. Lutosławski

German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter always puts on a good show, and she has a big enough profile to anchor season openers, for the NSO this season and for Washington Performing Arts Society in 2008. So it was a pleasure indeed to hear her in a more intimate program on Tuesday night, if not necessarily a more intimate venue, presented by WPAS in the Music Center at Strathmore. She chose a first half that was curiously small for her, but musically flattering, followed by a blockbuster second half that reminded us that she is a powerhouse on the instrument.

Mutter began with a slender Mozart sonata (G Major, K. 379), not even one that particularly stood out on her recording. As on her disc it was the delicate touch of her partner at the piano, Lambert Orkis, principal keyboard player of the National Symphony Orchestra, that stood out, pressing the tempo ahead in the first movement while Mutter seemed to take her time. It is an odd little piece, with an opening Adagio, an arching cantilena in G major, that ends abruptly in D major and sets up an Allegro in G minor, given a more meaty, big-boned sound by both players. In the closing Theme and Variations, Orkis again showed a light handling of the piano-only first variation, with Mutter not quite suited to the filigree fine points of the violin part, giving too much pluck to the harp-like accompaniment of the slow fifth variation, for example. The results were better with Schubert's Fantaisie in C Major (D. 934), with Mutter shining on her E string in the Allegretto section. The variations, based on Schubert's song Sei mir gegrüßt (with that signature harmonic progression from vi to V/vi to V), were the highlight for both musicians, although some syncopated in the piano part -- in one variation that can sound almost like a tango when those accents are emphasized -- seemed tame.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Anne-Sophie Mutter has a semi-great night (Washington Post, March 14)

Mutter's flawless ear for pitch and impressive memory make her a natural fit for more dissonant modern music, and as is often the case she made the biggest impression with just such a piece, Witold Lutosławski's rather fascinating Partita. The composer made an orchestral version of the piece in 1988 for Mutter, dedicating it to her, and she made a recording of that arrangement with the composer conducting. Rarely have microtonal bends sounded as sensual as rendered by Mutter, quite like human moans, and in this piece, where the violin part really is the dominant one, she finally took the spotlight and held it, her tone multichromatic, with moments shining, raspy, bird-like, muffled, syrupy, shrill. The final work, Camille Saint-Saëns' Sonata No. 1 in D minor, op. 75, left no doubt of Mutter's technical credentials. It is a high Romantic piece, sometimes thought to be the model for the Vinteuil sonata and its famous "petite phrase" in Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, and Mutter gave the opening movement a restive agitation and rhapsodic dreaminess to the second. The piece is just as challenging for the pianist (if anything, Saint-Saëns just did not know when to stop sometimes), and Orkis did a good job of keeping up with his soloist, keeping the third movement light and fluffy and not falling behind in the hell-bent-for-leather finale. Loud ovations warranted three fine encores: Ravel’s Pièce en forme de Habanera, Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 2, and the chestnut Meditation from Massenet’s Thaïs.

If you can still see straight by late afternoon on St. Patrick's Day, the next WPAS concert is a recital by flutist James Galway (March 17, 4 pm), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Yuja Wang's Polished Performance with the NSO

Fantasia, Y. Wang (2012) Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini / Piano Concert No. 2, Y. Wang, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, C. Abbado (2011)

The National Symphony Orchestra is performing its last major program of the year, not counting the annual Messiah, heard on Thursday night at the Kennedy Center. Hans Graf, returning to the NSO for the first time since 2008, led a program unified around the theme of Polish music. The Austrian conductor, currently music director of the Houston Symphony, was cool and confident at the podium, helping the musicians to shape the score according to some clear ideas. The results were mixed in many ways, with the smaller scores of Lutosławski and Chopin, more intimate and collaborative, faring better than the frankly overblown "Polish" symphony, no. 3, of Tchaikovsky.

The big draw, of course, was Yuja Wang playing the solo part of Chopin's first piano concerto. A prodigious technician at the keyboard, she has also impressed me as a fiercely intelligent musician, and this performance was no different. Chopin is not one of the composers I associate with her all that much, but his combination of virtuosity and wistful expression suited her just fine. Wang brought a fragile, understated tone to the more delicate passages, but that perhaps over-affected wanness was tempered by an unpredictable rhythmic quality that made the first movement leap off the page. Her runs glistened smoothly, and the trills sparkled -- it was a technical tour de force, as usual -- and because she was often able to make her right hand's sound so transparent (like those sighing bel canto excesses in the slow movement), even at maximum velocity, many interesting details in the left hand emerged. Graf kept the orchestra underneath her often very soft sound, and the orchestra, with some of the principal musicians sitting out (Wang had lovely duets with the bassoon in the second movement), gave a tragic quality to the introduction and interludes. The Vivace finale is not exactly a great piece of music, but Wang's astonishing virtuosity was enough to make you forget that. After such a blockbuster but admirably subtle performance, it was disappointing that Wang chose not to treat us to one of her signature trashy encores, especially since she played four of them at her 2010 recital and since her most recent recording is a smorgasbord of such pieces.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, Graf and the NSO get the most out of two little-known works (Washington Post, December 7)

Neither of the other pieces on the program had been heard from the NSO in over forty years. Witold Lutosławski's Musique funèbre (last played in 1971), dedicated to and written in imitation of Béla Bartók -- the palindromic forms, the irregular meter, the insect-laden night music of the middle section, the barbaro finale over repeated notes -- was a suitably gloomy, tragic introduction to the Chopin. Building up into a keening mass of strings from just a few cellos and violas, the piece uses a 12-tone procedure but is not as harsh and dissonant as most Second Viennese School music that used the technique. Graf led a lesser-known Tchaikovsky symphony, no. 1, in his 2005 appearance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and he concluded this concert with the composer's third symphony, nicknamed the "Polish," last played by the NSO in 1968. The work has some alluring moments but as with so much of Tchaikovsky's orchestral music, he needed someone to tell him when to stop. This is likely why his ballet scores are so excellent, because the choreography dictated the length of the music, forcing Tchaikovsky into a much-needed self-critical concision. Graf had less control of the piece, which did not help, making too many of the attacks and shifts of tempo a little imprecise across the orchestra. High points came in the graceful second movement and its quirky trio, with echoes of the charming pieces he would soon be writing for the ballet, and the tender, lyrical slow movement, but that over-thought first movement and a dog of a finale -- ponderous fugal section and all -- just run on too long.

This program repeats this evening (December 8, 8 pm), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Final Notes from the 2012 Salzburg Festival ( 16 )

Cleveland Orchestra • Franz Welser-Möst

The two Cleveland Orchestra concerts were not much less weird than that of the Berlin Philharmonic. Not by much, but a little. Mainly because Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra is a more easily appreciated work than his Third Symphony, especially for people who had come primarily for Bedřich Smetana’s Má Vlast. Or at least two thirds of it, seeing how the set of symphonic poems was split between the first and second concert. (The second concert contained—half 0dd, half interesting—Lutosławski’s Concerto for Piano, “Má Vlast cont.”, and DSCH Sy.6.) The starting time of 9PM apparently indicated this year: “Danger, modern music may be performed”. Enough people got the hint, judging from the lot of empty seats in the Grosse Festspielhaus. A pity that not more (European) listeners would want to exploit the rare opportunity to hear one of the world’s most exalted orchestras—one of the few that can always compete with the elite orchestras of Europe.

They certainly showed up the Berlin Philharmonic in Lutosławski. Layer upon layer, each fitting exactly, Franz Welser-Möst constructed this Concerto with painstaking precision from which rose an irresistible pull. What I said about the work (and the performance, given that the BRSO is perhaps the European Orchestra that most resembles the Clevelander’s technical ability) in 2009, when Mariss Jansons conducted it in Munich, applies here, too:

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