With dramatic semaphore signals, conductor Csaba Ajtony cued the MIKAMO ensemble to plunge into Samu Gryllus’ raucous “Transitional Aszemblies – for creative ensemble, Part 1,” the opener for their concert at the Budapest Music Center on October 12th. The score calls for the orchestra members to randomly shout “What?” and other exclamations and sounds that resembled a free-jazz session. However, this particular piece was carefully calculated and positioned: each of the piece’s three sections had something important to say while they also functioned as borders (both imaginary and realistic) between other composers’ works.
The second score was by Salvatore Sciarrino, who penned an exquisitely detailed soundscape of astral voices from the ether, tunneled reverberations, solar winds, distant echoes — seemingly how humans might perceive the language of fairies in flight, flitting all over the cosmos. This transparent harmonic fantasy, “Introduzione all’oscuro” was an immediate contrast to the chorus of alerts in the previous piece.
“Transitional Aszemblies, Part 2” returned with more vociferous expostulations like “Go!” “Stop!” and “Change!” woven into the orchestral montage of bits and pieces of organized chaos.
Next, mezzo-soprano Katalin Károlyi mesmerized the audience with her electric performance of György Kurtág’s score for Samuel Beckett’s “What is the Word,” translated into Hungarian from the original English. Kurtág had previously composed the work for the actress Ildikó Monyók, who, after an accident, had to learn to speak and walk again. Thus, the halting tempo of Károlyi’s efforts to pronounce the text in awkward single tones depicted the existential dilemma of a woman trying to rediscover her voice after losing it. Luckily, Károlyi had the pleasure of working personally with Kurtág for this performance, for which a dramatic solo spotlight was beamed on her, as well as Ajtony accompanying her on an upright piano. The results were stunning.
Then, Georg Friedrich Haas’ “…fliessend…” gave us an atmosphere of impending danger, replete with drones, signals, repetitive drumbeats, and rising and falling volume levels that employed a 5/4 beat doom-loop to the end of time. Ramping up the dystopia, Sara Glojnarić’s “sugarcoating (v2.0)” flipped her script by giving us the ugly underbelly of its title: a destructo-mode, schizophrenic pop-music from Hell that featured frenetic flurries for mallet instruments, and glissandos and other keyboard acrobatics played by the fearless pianist Péter Kiss.
After all the hysteria, Gryllus’ Part 3 began, this one showing us his version of the Diogenes’ lantern scenario: Károlyi returned, barefoot, wandering within the orchestra with a modern bull-horn to address the crowd with “What?” again and again. Her frightened, lost-soul demeanor as she whispered nonsense syllables, appeared to cap this world premiere of Gryllus’ new work with searing, urgent questions for humanity.
The evening’s finale felt like the Garden of Eden that awaits us if we answer all the “What?” questions correctly. Mikel Urquiza’s “Oiseaux gazouillants et hibou qui se retourne” could become our promised alternative reality, which this score paints as a brilliantly colored, magical jungle — an avian wonderland with fertile earth, perfumed air, and supercharged energy sources. As the whistles and whirlwinds began to dominate at the end, the folk instrument, the jaw-harp, though, had the last word. Throughout the entire program, Ajtony’s exemplary conducting with great precision and mastery of these complex scores was a wonder to watch.
MIKAMO is a three-country organization founded in Vienna in 2007, and its members are from Budapest, Vienna, and Bratislava. Their programs that I have witnessed in Budapest during the last few years have always impressed me with their inspired curating. They choose compelling and concise pieces, align them in intriguing ways, and encourage the listeners to sort out the musical magic on their own. Regarding this October 12th performance, my interpretations and responses to what I heard in this concert were somewhat different from what each composer described on the printed program as his musical vision. That’s the magic.