The Szolnok Symphony Orchestra came to town on June 5 to play a high-powered program of Bartók and Khatchaturian at the Liszt Academy. Instead of employing guest conductors, as is their usual, this time they brought their own maestro, Masahiro Izaki. This world-renown Japanese conductor has effectively been elevating their symphonic prowess and profile in Szolnok since 2007 – he has also functioned as the city’s chief music director since 2010.
The concert’s first half was devoted to accompanying pianist Amano Honoka, a Liszt Academy student whose diploma recital choice – to complete her one-year soloist training program – was Bartók’s 2nd Piano Concerto. The other half was comprised of nine selections from the Armenian composer’s Masquerade and Gayane ballet suites.
This program interested me because the evening’s bill of fare was a surprising list of total barn-stormers that require lightning-speed dexterity, precision, and stamina, all coordinated while maintaining great volume capacity. Could they pull it off? Would the listeners grow weary of two-plus hours of (mostly) fortissimo bombast?
I’m happy to report they could, and did, including the blue-gowned, diminutive Honoka, who, if I had closed my eyes, I would have sworn this demanding concerto was being played by a hefty dude on steroids. Honoka had perfect command of all the blistering finger-work in the two outer movements, and revealing an appropriately lighter touch in the second movement’s sublime gossamer serenity, with its shimmering trills and curious octave conversations with the tympanist. A few calmer moments in the score revealed secret little hints of Khatchaturian’s modal style before the third movement’s brass blasts, swingin’ syncopation, and a fully-deployed percussion section.
![Masahiro Izaki, Amoko Honoka and the Szolnok Symphony](https://papageno.hu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/DSC_0144.jpg)
Her encore was also a more upper-level challenge: Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s “Liebestod,” wherein her beautifully carved phrases, so full of climaxes and resolutions, left us with breathless tenderness at the end.
The Khatchaturian chapter was a bit exploited here: I feel that selecting mostly fast and loud dances from the two scores did the composer a disservice. I know his oeuvre well, and he has written just as many exquisite sweet and slow lyrical ballades and dances (and songs) as speed-demon, percussion-concussion war horses. Within the seven dances chosen, only one: Ayshe’s Dance, with its sexy sax solo, muted horns, fulsome strings, and bird language from the piccolo gave us a brief respite.
![Amoko Honoka and the Szolnok Symphony](https://papageno.hu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/DSC_0146.jpg)
However, everything that was performed was spot-on. The orchestra was in peak form under Izaki’s leadership. Special kudos go to the winds and percussion, who were challenged to the max in this program. Naturally, no one was surprised at their choice of encores: an even faster repeat of the dizzying Lezginka from Gayane, and the familiar ‘Sabre Dance’ – the piece that will forever remain in our cultural memory as the ultimate circus – a stirring call to dance ‘til you drop, win the war, capture the enemy, and above all, have a good time.