EIF: Budapest Festival Orchestra: Bartók and Kodály
Usher Hall - 09/08/23
Budapest Festival Orchestra - Iván Fischer, conductor | András Schiff, piano
NYCOS National Girls’ Choir
In the third of the four concerts of their residency in this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, under the baton of Iván Fischer, presented an all-Hungarian programme of folk-inspired music by the country’s most famous 20th-century masters, Bartók and Kodály. Two of Bartók’s most popular works, the ‘Romanian Folk Dances’ and the evergreen Piano Concerto No.3 with Sir András Schiff as soloist, set the ball rolling. After the interval, the orchestra was joined by the National Girls’ Choir of the National Youth Choirs of Scotland for a less well known work, Bartók’s ‘Seven Choruses’. The advertised programme concluded with a perennial favourite, Kodály’s ‘Dances of Galánta’.
If versatility was very much the watchword of the evening, the joy of music-making was the theme. Before a stylish rendition of the Romanian Dances in Bartók’s setting for small orchestra, three musicians of the orchestra, two violinists and a bassist, played the Transylvanian originals in authentic folk style on folk instruments, both enthusiastically received by the packed Usher Hall.
Haters of ‘plinky-plonk’ 20th-century music will find nothing to raise their hackles in Bartók’s sunny, lyrical Third Piano Concerto, despite being written while he was terminally ill. Composed as a ‘pension’ for his pianist wife, it is mostly lyrical and optimistic, often playful, Bartók’s individual voice and fastidious sense of form and structure disguised in themes with a folk-inspired flavour in the outer movements, while the ‘night music’ slow movement tempered an awe at the beauty of nature with an aching regret at the cruelty of mortality. All received the utmost advocacy from András Schiff, conductor and orchestra, in playing that fully exploited the opportunities for dialogue between the piano and the ensemble. Quite excellent.
A reduced ensemble made room for the 75-strong NYCoS Girls’ Choir, resplendent in their red blouses and black trousers, ranged stage front and left. The astonishing versatility displayed by a young Scottish choir singing expressively and fluently in Hungarian is remarkable and unforgettable. Surtitles were provided for the rest of us. The seven choruses are varied in theme, some poetically descriptive, some evocative of heartache and some quite hilarious. Richly harmonic and melodic, they were very well received, with especial plaudits for the chorus director, Christopher Bell. The choristers retired to the choir balcony, from where they could enjoy the rest of the performance.
I’ve known Kodály’s delicious set of Dances of Galánta since my youth and I’ve always loved them, especially as they contain my all-time favourite clarinet solo, exquisitely delivered on the night by principal clarinettist Ákos Ács. Playful and witty, a set of brisk dances set as episodes inside a recurring more contemplative theme, with a thrilling coda, what’s not to like? The Budapest Festival Orchestra left us in no doubt that this was their music and they clearly love it as much as I do.
A surprise encore rewarded the rapturous applause: about a third of the orchestra stood up and sang a Monteverdi madrigal, accompanied by a handful of strings and percussion. Magical! As I say, versatility!
Cover photo: Jess Shurte