Of boyards and hussars

A fabulous concert transports Amal Choucri Catta to Hungary

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Hungarian musical evening, Budapest Concert Orchestra, cond Tamas Csurgo, piano solo Ramzi Yassa. Main Hall, Cairo Opera House, 5 April, 8pm

Though Cairo's Opera House hosted several interesting concerts last week, the most lavish was indisputably the Hungarian musical evening, on Monday 5 April at the Main Hall, animated by the Budapest Concert Orchestra, under Tamas Csurgo's eminent baton, with Egyptian virtuoso Ramzi Yassa at the keyboard. Applauded two days earlier at Alexandria's recently inaugurated Sayed Darwish Theatre, the orchestra enjoyed a full house in Cairo and an enraptured audience. Young and old appreciated the excellent Hungarian instrumentalists' harmony, musicality and discipline. Their performance was expressive; the programme, diversified; and the Maestro's particularly stimulating baton turned the concert into a brilliant event.

From the first notes of the temperamental brass fanfare, it was clear that the audience was listening to virtuosity without flashiness. Here was technical excellence, first-rate interpretation, terrific playing and conducting. Tamas Csurgo is one of those rare masters who can hold an orchestra at the tip of his fingers, conducting with an effervescent light touch and stunning musicianship.

The concert opened with Ferenc Erkel's overture to his opera Hunyadi Laszlo. Composer, conductor and founder of the Budapest Philharmonic, Erkel belongs to a family of celebrated musicians, of which he is the best known. He was among the first Hungarian nationalists who strive to establish national opera. Born in November 1810, he died in June 1893, writing his first opera Batori Maria in 1840 and following it up with Hunyadi Laszlo in 1844, which is the most successful of his operas in Hungary. Erkel produced his next opera, Bank Ban, in 1916, in collaboration with two of his sons, Gyula and Sandor. With Hunyadi Laszlo his experiments were taken a stage further: Hungarian elements were more fully incorporated into fluent, original structures, and more vivid and penetrating characterisation was created. It must, however be admitted that none of Erkel's subsequent operas achieved comparable success. With Sarolta and Nevtelen Hosok he attempted comic opera, making copious use of popular tunes and rustic scenes. This was followed by Dosza Gyorgy and Brankovics Gyorgy, which incorporated Hungarian musical characteristics into a continuous musical flow, with the orchestra taking a prominent role. Erkel's last opera Istvan Kiraly was mostly composed by his eldest son, Gyula. His three other sons, Elek, Laszlo and Sandor followed in their father's footsteps, turning into eminent composers, conductors and teachers. Erkel's production comprises ten operas, six comic operas, the national Hungarian hymn, incidental and chamber music, overtures and music for the piano.

One of the first masters of young Bela Bartok, Ferenc Erkel is quite unknown to Cairene audiences: his overture to Hunyadi Laszlo was therefore an exciting musical experience. The opera itself is in four acts, based on a libretto by Beny Egressi and on an original drama by Lorince Toth, premiered in Budapest in January 1844.

The opera is set in 15th century Hungary, opening on Laszlo Hunyadi, leader of the Hungarian army, who is informed of the new king Laszlo V's plan to massacre his troops. When confronted, the king feigns reconciliation: he is however, attracted to Maria, Hunyadi's fiancée, and, with the support of her father, Laszlo has the young lover arrested and is thus enabled to marry Maria. Hunyadi is condemned to death and beheaded. "Hunyadi" is in reality the well-known name of a family of Rumanian boyards -- an old order of Russian nobility -- originally from Walachia, an ancient principality of South-Eastern Europe, and who established themselves in Transylvania. They gave Hungary military chiefs and kings, among them Ladislas V or "Laslo the posthume", who reigned from 1444 to 1457.

Ferencz Liszt's First Piano Concerto in E-flat is the most vivacious of the two Liszt composed for the keyboard, requiring from the soloist as much tenderness and sensitivity as imperious passion. It came next on programme, that evening, opening with a prelude which introduced a breathtaking dialogue between clarinet and piano, while going on an eloquent pianistic spree before reaching the Adagio of the second movement.

Rain never seems to have fallen in Weimar, where Liszt was eagerly creating some of his most important works. His second movement's adagio is filled with sunshine and cloudless skies. Blue elfs and pink fairies prance around the keyboard and springtime melodies soaring across evergreen plains. Ramzi Yassa was brilliant, and the audience was enthralled.

Ferencz Liszt is counted among the most popular Hungarian composers and one of the greatest pianists ever. He gave his first recital at the age of nine. Born in 1811, he played in Paris in 1823 and in London one year later while being received by George IV. From 1833 he lived with Countess Marie d'Agoult: of their three children, Cosima became the wife of Bulow and later on, of Richard Wagner. Liszt toured widely and, in later years, he had a liaison with Princess Carolyn Sayn-Wittgenstein. In 1865, while living in Rome in Villa d'Este, he took minor orders, becoming Abbe Liszt. Three years later he divided his time between Rome, Weimar and Budapest, while his amorous adventures were still the talk of Europe. In the last five years of his life he concentrated on teaching, though in 1886 he made a jubilee-tour to mark his 75th birthday, revisiting Paris and London. He died in Bayreuth in 1886, leaving a vast number of symphonic poems, symphonies, orchestra music, sacred, choral and chamber music, songs, rhapsodies and music for the piano.

Subtle and dignified, Ramzi Yassa's tune was fanciful, meditative and his flamboyant fingers seemed to fly over the keys like a delicate swarm of butterflies. Yassa has always been a genius of the keyboard: his technique is astoundingly sensitive and eloquent, bold and powerful -- but never aggressive. He was master of the keyboard that night, giving us Liszt as we love him. Turning to the allegretto vivace of the third movement, Yassa's performance, though passionate, ventured momentarily into light-hearted merriment, seasoned with a hint of irony. Closing with a vehement Marziale, he brought the concerto to a triumphant climax. The audience cheered, calling pianist and conductor several times back on stage.

Zoltan Kodaly, born in 1882, is an important Hungarian composer, though among the lesser known by Cairene audiences. He met Bela Bartok after his graduation in 1905 and wrote his first symphonic poem Summer Evening, a year later. He taught theory and composition at the Liszt Academy and, in 1923, for the 50th anniversary of the unification of Buda and Pest as Hungarian capital, he composed Psalmus Hungaricus which was soon performed throughout Europe and America under leading conductors including Toscanini and Furtwangler. After WWII he travelled widely, conducting his own compositions and died in 1965, aged 85.

Kodaly's music opened the second part of the concert, introducing the Peacock Variations to the Cairo audience. They are variations on a Hungarian folk song, composed in 1938 and commissioned for the 50th anniversary of the well-known Dutch Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Variations are reminiscent of Csardas melodies with their wild, gypsy flavour, and of Verbukos as danced to gypsy rhythms by uniformed Hussars. They are also evocative of vast Pusta plains and of the Danube merrily flowing through sunny spaces: it was music filled with joy and cheer, as hot and spicy as Hungarian Paprika.

In the end came Johannes Brahms, who was not Hungarian but German, earning his living from age 13 by teaching and playing in theatres and taverns. Schumann hailed him as a young genius and he remained faithful to the latter and to his widow, Clara, long after Schumann's death. Among his numerous works, Brahms composed a cycle of 21 piano duets, later transcribed for orchestra, inspired by Hungarian and gypsy folklore, the Hungarian Dances. Of these enchanting, popular compositions the orchestra played numbers 1, 6, 7 and 5. Though this was hardly the first time that the Cairo audience had heard them, the Hungarian Dances offered had never before seemed as reckless and extravagant, or as fascinating.

The audience kept asking for more. They got a very Hungarian version of Radames' famous march theme from Verdi's Aida, with brilliant fanfares, ravishing brass and a brisk, supple tempo. But the concert was not over yet: the delirious audience kept asking for more, and the generous maestro kept giving, turning the concert into a fabulous event.