David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. Orchestra 1 (Seat Y105, $90).
Aimard and Malkki after the Ligeti piano concerto. The orchestra did not seem particularly large, but there were a lot of instruments involved.
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp minor, S.244/2H (1847; arr. 2017) by Liszt (1811-86), arr. Listztes (b. 1986).
Romanian Folk Dances, BB 76 (1915; orch. 1917) by Bartok (1881-1945).
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1985-86/1988) by Ligeti (1923-2006).
Pictures at an Exhibition (1874; arr. 1922) by Musorgsky (1839-81), arr. Ravel (1875-1937).
This is an eclectic program. It begins with two short pieces based on Hungarian and Romani tunes, followed by a piano concert by Ligeti. The second half was Russian music orchestrated by a French composer, but remains undoubtedly Russian in character. The audience was also treated to the cimbalom, a Hungarian variation of the hammered dulcimer. Individual pieces have their merits, but I can't see how the pieces constitute a coherent concert program.
Jeno Lisztes is a Budapest-born musician. He adapted the Liszt piece for the cimbalom, which he performed today. Some tunes in the rhapsody are famous: Cat Concerto famous, in this case. Any musical instrument performed well is impressive, and it is impressive how two hammers can produce such complex sounds from the instrument. While the experience was enjoyable, and perhaps memorable, it was nonetheless little more than a "sing-along" experience, at least as far as this concert-goer is concerned. The Program Notes says this piece is about 7 minutes, it was quite a bit longer than that. (Time stamp of applause at 2:16 pm, and the concert started quite promptly, at say 2:05.)
Jeno Lisztes performed his arrangement of Liszt's Rhapsody.
An image of the Cimbalom downloaded from the web. The Chinese have a similar hammered dulcimer called the Yanquin.
Bartok managed to squeeze in seven (some would say six) movements into 7 minutes. And these were quite enjoyable. The movements are Stick Dance, Sash Dance, In One Spot, Horn Dance, Romanian Polka, and Fast Dance (one or two). The tempo markings (see Program) were easy enough to discern (one might argue the line between Andante and Moderato), but the feel of each dance had little to do with the title of the movement. I looked at the score and the description of the Stick Dance in the Program Notes just now: "young men's solo dance ... consists of kicking the room's ceiling." One would think that would be done with fanfare and difficulty, but the score doesn't read that way, neither did the performance.
A relatively small ensemble used for Bartok's piece.
This is the 100th year of Ligeti's birth, and many orchestras - including the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony - celebrate by putting out tributes. The piano concerto was first a 3-movement work, and later expanded by the composer to five. Here is how the Program Notes quotes Ligeti on the fourth movement: "Its formal process is fractal in time: reiterating the same formula, the same succession always in different shapes, using simultaneous augmentation and diminution of the same models ... focusing on smaller and smaller details." That I don't understand what he was saying is inconsequential, Ligeti won many prizes and accolades because of this work (even before it was expanded). The Annotator offered brief descriptions of each of the movements, and offers up the observation that after the fourth movement's uproar, the "concluding Presto luminoso seems more a coda than an emphatic sort of finale." In my view it was a fitting - and hefty - finale.
As to how Aimard did it. The Program Notes contains a review of his performance in 2019, the last paragraph of which is "Aimard rose superbly to the technical challenges of the piece, but more impressive still was his command of Ligeti's ironies and ambiguities of tone - no sweetly inviting, now dry and sardonic." I am not about to argue with that assessment. The only surprising thing was he needed the score in front of him.
The piece involves a large number of instruments, including 23 "percussion" instruments. Some of them I classify as "percussion" only because they were played by the percussionists. Examples are bird whistle and Hohner harmonica. What can't these versatile folks do?
Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition was based on an exhibit in memory of Musorgsky's close friend Viktor Hartmann, an architect and designer. Not all of the movements can be associated with specific items at the exhibit, but the overall structure of moving from one room to the other is clear.
I recall the Promenade as being more prevalent than today's performance, where it showed up four times. A piano score I looked at just now had the Promenade appear five times, so my recollection was off. The piece is easy to listen to, and easy to like. Today's performance was no exception. One can try to associate what one hears with the title of the movement, but that is not necessary. Some complain that Ravel's orchestration could be more "Russian," but it was clear Russian for me. In any case, there is no way a piano can duplicate the grandiosity of a full orchestra. Listening to parts of piece played by a pianist just now, I can confirm it cannot.
A good performance of Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is always enjoyable.
Before the second half began, the Orchestra played a movement from Elgar's Enigma Variations (Nimrod) in memory of a colleague (a stage manager) who recently passed away. It was a great tribute. Done without a conductor, it makes one wonder how much a conductor adds to the performance: we recently heard it performed by the NJ Symphony.
This concert started at 2 pm.
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