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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 2 - 8 November 2000 Issue No. 506 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 2 - 8 November 2000 Issue No. 506
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region Interview International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Rocks, stones, hurricanes
By David Blake
Piano recital: Balàzs Szokolay; Cairo Opera House: Small Hall, 26 October
The piano is the instrument of the new millennium. Keep calm, don't get crazy, it's really a friendly, happy instrument if you know how to treat it -- and Balàzs Szokolay does. He should, he's a young Hungarian from the Liszt Academy of Budapest.
Szokolay bounced into the opening number of his recital, the Bach Italian Concerto. Some thought he cannot play Bach. Who can play Bach? From Landowska to Andras Shiff and Uchida, there is no way to play Bach. That is his uniqueness. He's glorious, munchy, crispy bread -- and water. You add the flavoring you prefer.
For some reason, one expected Szokolay to be something else: very tall, thin, rather aloof and neurotic -- modern. Wrong guy. Szokolay is short, powerful, muscular and jolly, exuding confidence and well being. A relish of a change. He makes no fuss at the keys. No Hungarian ever does. Even Solti played like a relaxed student, producing waves of luscious sound and musical philosophies far from the beaten track. This is the Szokolay approach. He relishes a rich mix of sound and has the technique to produce it. Nothing carefully manipulated, nothing mixed-up or complex, mostly just good, honest, straightforward sound released by great energy. Wait till he is at the keys and hear what he can produce.
The Italian Concerto lacks the usual Bach architectural supports. It merely goes on clearing out the mess of daily playing. This suited Szokolay. He enjoyed the clean-up -- and added a meaty touch of colour to the notes. Though this changed Bach's usual aspect, it was exciting. It had a new glow because Szokolay has his own approach and his own voice, and he is not afraid to use them.
Next item to be played was the Suite Bergamasque of Debussy which was a slap in the face. Szokolay might as well have gone into Cole Porter and the gear change would not have been less hard. Suite Bergamasque, soft-edged like chiffon and moonlight: what caprice made Szokolay prepare us for a big dose of Bartok's harshest music, the following item, with the "Claire de Lune" section of the suite? Anyway his touch at the keys brought it off.
Hungarian pianists are noted by the rest of the informed brotherhood of pianists as possessing a special tone -- and fingers. Fingers may be of moonlight and steel. So, since Szokolay had all the requirements for Debussy's beautiful Broadway melodies, he gave it to us pure and it was revelatory. These fingers, this tone -- from deep dark sounds of bass thunder to almost transparent pianissimos recalling those of Michaelangeli -- were given to us through the remainder of the concert.
Debussy used the piano as a singing instrument; Bartok in the pieces which followed uses it obsessively as a percussive one. So Suite Bergamasque sang along like a street angel, always with one tone in reserve for bad news to come. Debussy was a lover of Baudelaire. So was Bartok who also knew Roman elegy and gypsy song.
After Debussy was solid Bartok who uses nothing but his own tone. The cumulative effect of Bartok's Four Dirges Suite, Op. 14 and Six Bulgarian Improvisations was like that of the huge piano piece of Kaikhosru Sorabji Clavicembalisticum, a piece which continues for one hour and a half: an all-out effort has to be summoned for your listening apparatus to even begin to absorb the music.
Balàzs Szokolay
This Bartok selection played in one section was like the Sorabji piece: we were caught in the Humboldt current somewhere near the Caribbean, submerged and surfaced again around Cape Horn. These pieces beginning with bell chimes continue using every percussive device known to the piano to suggest a mood of arid destruction. Their primitivism is unrelieved: huge blocks of chords, flashing fingers bursting up and down the keyboard, storm-tossed climaxes and sudden pianissimos like views of extensive spaces, far distant but always humane and in proportion. Nothing atonal or off the key. Bartock's inventions for the piano are awesome, and so are the demands he makes on the player.
The webs of sound went on and on but never did Szokolay's tone disintegrate or sink into merely empty noise. Like Busoni said: sing don't shout. And Szokolay sang. It was an astounding display but more was to come.
If you love the piano you mostly love Liszt. After all this landscape of rocks and stone of Bartok Szokolay, suddenly without any warning at all, went announced by the programme into a shattering performance of Liszt's Seventh Hungarian Rhapsody. The effect was like being in the Sahara and then catapulted into the lush pastures of a Hungarian landscape. All listeners sometimes long for Bartok to go the limit and give us zigeuner music in full force. With the Liszt piece Szokolay did just this and his concert virtually exploded into a riot of colour, tone and tempo which took the breath away. This ended a never to be forgotten evening.
Cairo Symphony Orchestra; Atef Halim, violinist; José Maria Florencio Junior; Cairo Opera House: Main Hall, 28 October
We had rocks and stones again with the opening piece, Beethoven's Coriolan overture which he composed to a play based on the Roman tragedy. Jagged, harsh and pitilessly cruel it suggested Beethoven knew what went on in the halls of power and glory, a menu of horrors, but all ending in a whispering of nothing.
This was followed by a performance of the Brahms Concerto for Violin in D Major, Op. 77. Its three long movements were written to display the powers of the violin to their absolute limit. It is brutal often, sometimes tender, but always the muscular spirit of something macho must be hanging around in the background. Rather unpleasant.
Something must have gone terribly wrong. José Maria Florencio Junior, the Brazilian conductor, did his job with Brahms. It was grand, but where was the violin of Atef Halim? He floated out to his position to begin the music which never appeared. Maybe he was ill. The violin was more often a shade, invisible. Occasionally a wee squeak emerged in the long series of huge arpeggios made for a large healthy tone. His invalid tones hardly emerged from the great sections of the concerto. The violin was lost. Halim stood his ground. The music, embarrassingly, allowed for silences during which the audience which included university students plus music lovers booed. In some cases silence is golden.
The night was more than saved, in fact it became a triumph, with wondrous notes made into strange flowers in the Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, op. 27 which followed. Rachmaninov at this time of his life was on the rack. This strange, withdrawn genius whose piano playing could enchant the foul fiends wrote often from his tormented heart some dark and thrilling music such as this symphony. It is like a gem of a jungle midnight flower created at night, doomed to die by the morning as the sun rises.
Under the direction of Florencio Junior, it was given a performance which for those present capable of realising the importance of what was being played will become historic. The symphony has four movements, all drenched in weird colours, with the third movement rising to heights of nostalgic beauty only Strauss and Mahler could equal. If you still know how to let yourself go, then revel in the rich tones and collapse on the well-upholstered breast of Rachmaninov and allow him to wring your withers with his gorgeous version of the Great Crumble. Life has been played out to the end, so get up and move, that is all that is left.
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