Two major composers in recent music history are attached to current events that have made news lately. One story is tragic and the other celebratory.
- hirdetés -
Firstly, Arnold Schoenberg’s complete archive in Los Angeles burned down in the January fires – an irretrievable loss to the music world. Secondly, Pierre Boulez’ 100th birthday (March 26) is being celebrated this year around the world, but mostly in France where his career was exalted the most.
Both of these iconic figures are known for their ground-breaking invention of new musical languages: 12-tone and serialism, the latter being tricky to define, but nevertheless continue to reshape serious composition world-wide. Their works broke barriers via radical viewpoint and performance practice.
Budapest’s noted new-music purveyors, Metrum Ensemble, put together an unusual and fascinating concert: “Boulez 100xSchoenberg150” (referencing the two men’s birth years) on February 26th at the Hungarian House of Music. Metrum might as well have entitled the concert “Schoenberg is Dead!” – the title of a rant that Boulez wrote when Schoenberg died in 1951. In his long screed, he castigated the founding father of 12-tone music and author of “Theory of Harmony” (1911) with unprecedented vitriol. Why he did this is still up for discussion, and I too, have my own theories.
Metrum’s program was emceed by the amiable Gergely Fazekas who peppered his talking points with history and humor for the audience. That was a wonderful and helpful in-person plan, because the otherworldly landscape of Schoenberg’s Opus 45 String Trio and Boulez’ Sonatina for electrified flute and piano followed by his frenetic clarinet soliloquy, “Dialogue de l’ombre double” alongside pre-recorded tracks, would have remained rather inscrutable for an audience with no printed program for them to consult.
The seven musicians employed here were all outstanding in their delivery and devotion to these three scores, which require extraordinary amounts of preparation. They are: violinist András Vavrinecz, violist Kata Koppán, cellist Eszter Agárdi, flutist Anna Rákóczy, pianist Péter Ittzés, clarinetist Lajos Rozmán, and Bálint Bolcsó was the electronics engineer. Rudolf Kolisch, the leader of his own string quartet that worked alongside Schoenberg and premiered many of his works, is on record as saying “it was difficult music, so we needed to memorize everything beforehand to enable the contact between the players. In those years, the first performances were a complete shock for the audiences, especially in Vienna. Sometimes [Schoenberg’s] music provoked riots in Europe.”
Boulez, almost a generation later, challenged both audiences and musicians with his fearless exploration of each instruments’ range and technical capacity within an almost punishing demand for brilliant virtuosity and endurance. This was demonstrated in the “Dialogue,” so masterfully delivered by Rozman from memory – twice, in fact, as the clarinetist performed the 20-minute piece at first with full house lights on and the second time in total darkness. I was of two minds with this approach: while it was groundbreaking in its essence, it was also pushing the dial beyond what was human into something destined to explode from exhaustion for the player, the listener, and the egoistical stratagems of the composer.
It perhaps reflected his strict Catholic upbringing filled with high expectations and brutal criticism. Personal note: my first professional singing job in New York City was with the New York Philharmonic Chorus, performing Liszt’s “Legend of Saint Elisabeth” with Boulez conducting. I will never forget his steely, stern gaze from the podium, conducting without a baton or even one smile the entire evening.
The venue for this concert was packed and I am personally thrilled that so many people of all ages schlepped through a cold and rainy night to hear such a unique program so beautifully produced.
