Subscription Concerts 2023-2024Program C
No. 1995 Subscription (Program C)

Hungarian composer and pianist Bartók entered in 1899 the Academy of Music in Budapest founded two decades earlier by Liszt (discussed below), one of the greatest musicians Hungary has ever produced. Bartók studied piano under István Thomán, Liszt’s pupil, and composition under János Koessler who also trained Kodály (mentioned later). After graduation in 1903, Bartók developed an interest in the folk music of the nation, which was coupled with a rising Hungarian nationalism of the time. It was from this period on that he steadily traveled with wax cylinders in his hand to collect and study the folk songs.

This research deeply inspired Bartók’s “classical” outputs in its all aspects. He sometimes used existing folk tunes as his compositional materials and at other times, created melodic, rhythmic or harmonic elements from scratch that sounded just like authentic folk music. And one of the apt illustrations is Hungarian Pictures (1931), the suite of five orchestral arrangements that he prepared from his piano works written in 1908-1911.

The opening pentatonic-scale (five-note-scale) theme on clarinet marks already the folksy mood of I An Evening in the Village, while II Bear Dance lets tuba and timpani suggest the animal entertainer stomping. The only piece scored for harp, slower-moving III Melody evokes scorings of Debussy who largely influenced the young Bartók. Following the humorously descriptive IV Slightly Tipsy, our composer quotes the Hungarian folk song Házasodik a tücsök (The Cricket is Getting Married) at V Swineherd's Dance.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Forward-looking composer, legendary pianist, leading conductor and tireless teacher, Liszt represents the Austro-German Romanticism in music. Among his countless achievements is the double invention of the symphonic genre “tone poem” and the concert form “recital.” Moreover, his venturesome harmony exerted a great influence on Wagner (1813–1883), another Austro-German Romantic titan. On the other hand, Liszt, born in Doborján, Hungary (ruled then by Austrian Empire), was always proud of his roots while relocating his home in various places of Europe. In 1839 he made his first return to Hungary in sixteen years. He since visited the native soil many times (and even based in Budapest in his last years) communing with local traditional music and gypsy music that he infamously muddled up. That aside, he left us remarkable, nationalist works of which the most famous example is Hungarian Rhapsodies, a set of nineteen piano pieces on existing Hungarian and gypsy tunes.

An adaptation by the composer of Hungarian Rhapsody No. 14, Hungarian Fantasy (or Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Melodies) (1853) is a single-movement piano concerto. The principal theme, derived from the Hungarian folk song Magosan repül a daru (The Crane Flies High), is announced solemnly by horns and bassoons at the opening. The work sounds improvisational due to its constant changes in tempos and moods, and also its profusion of dazzling cadenzas where the pianist all alone is lavish playing trills (speedy alternations of two notes), runs (long fast passages) and glissandos (gliding on the keyboard).

[Kumiko Nishi]

Hungarian composer and educator Kodály was also a forefather of ethnomusicology long before the term was created. As with his collaborator Bartók, the fieldwork of collecting folk songs as well as the scientific analysis and classification thereof brought richness and uniqueness to Kodály’s own creations.

Háry János: His Adventures from Nagyabony to the Vienna Burg (1928) is a Singspiel-style opera (with dialogues spoken) based on the amusing epic Az obsitos (The Veteran) by the Hungarian poet János Garay (1812–1853). Similar to Don Quixote, it features the old lovable boaster Háry who, in a tavern in the Hungarian village Nagyabony, diverts those present with his overly magnified accounts of his erstwhile feats as a soldier in the Austrian army.

Prepared by the composer for concert, the orchestral suite excellently condenses the comedy of the original opera without being faithful to the plot’s flow. I Prelude; the Fairy Tale Begins starts with an orchestral “sneeze” (Kodály’s expression), implying the stories Háry tells from now on are truthful according to a Hungarian superstition. On the Austrian border, Marie Louise (daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II and wife of Napoleon) falls in love with Háry so she invites him (and his sweetheart Orsze) to Vienna: scored for tubular bells, glockenspiel and celesta without strings, II Viennese Musical Clock describes the chiming bells and the mechanical dolls of the palace’s clock. III Song (evoking homesickness of Háry and Orsze) and V Intermezzo sound Hungarian by far because of the presence of the cimbalom, a flat trapezoidal instrument with metal strings hit by two sticks. Brassy IV The Battle and Defeat of Napoleon is from the scene where Háry, unaided, thrashes French forces with ease. Here we hear a takeoff on La Marseillaise followed by a comical funeral march. Háry returns in triumph to the Imperial palace in Vienna to meet with the Emperor. After the delusive flashy march (VI Entrance of the Emperor and His Court) ended by a mighty blow of the bass drum, Háry declines the Emperor’s proposal to give Marie Louise in marriage to him, and goes back to his homeland for Orsze.

[Kumiko Nishi]