Tag Archives: Beethoven

Milano-Budapest-Huntsville

Posted on by

Welcome back everyone!
I hope you all had a great summer and you are ready for the next season of great classical music.
My 2015-16 season starts on September 4 with a concert performance of Lady Sarashina by Peter Eötvös at festival Triennial di Milano as part of the Milano World Fair.
http://triennale.org
I will be conducting the cast of the October 2014 Budapest production and the Hungarian Radio Symphony at Teatro dell’Arte.
See the blog post about the Budapest production here:
http://gregoryvajda.com

I have the honor of conducting the first two shows of a brand new concert series with the Hungarian Radio Symphony at the Budapest Music Center.
On the program:
Haydn: Symphony No. 6 “Le Matin”
Haydn: Piano Concerto in D-major
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 “Pastorale”

The solo piano part of the Haydn concerto will be played by Misi Boros, an amazing young talent, winner of the Hungarian classical music TV talent show “Virtuozok”
http://bmc.hu
There will be two shows, one at 4pm, one at 7:30pm on Saturday, September 12. The Hungarian Radio will do its usual live broadcast that you can listen to online.

After Milano and Budapest I am ready for Huntsville. I will lead the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra in a blockbuster program of music by Britten and Vaughan Williams. This will be my first time conducting ‘A Sea Symphony’ by RVW. You don’t want to miss the amazing voices of Tiffany Bostic-Brown, Terrance Brown and the Huntsville Community Chorus! If you are in or around Huntsville on September 18 you don’t want to miss this performance!
Happy New Season!

Virtual Beethoven

Posted on by

CAFe Budapest http://cafebudapest.hu
has started this week. This Contemporary Art Festival was known before as Budapest Autumn Festival. I have had the opportunity to do many interesting projects for them as a composer, conductor, even as a clarinetist. My very first opera, The Giant Baby was premiered as the closing production of the 2001 festival. This year I am conducting Lady Sarashina, an opera by Peter Eotvos. Two performances will take place at the Solti Hall of the Liszt Academy on October 17 and 19. I will write about this production later here.
Before conducting Lady Sarashina, I am doing a concert with the Hungarian Radio Symphony (MR Symphony) on Tuesday, October 14 at MUPA (Palace of the Arts). I put together a program that connects with the ‘must-MEET’ program series of of the International Eotvos Institute for Contemporary Music.
http://eotvosmusicfoundation.org
On this program ‘Second Self’, an intriguing composition by Michel van der Aa for orchestra and lap top see details here:
http://www.vanderaa.net
and ‘The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven’ by Louis Andriessen
http://www.boosey.com/composer/louis+andriessen
represent contemporary music along with ‘Monochrome, Concerto beFORe Piano’ by young Hungarian composer Peter Tornyai.
http://petertornyai.com/
The first half of the concert ends with Beethoven’s 10th Symphony. Yes, you read it right.
Barry Cooper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Cooper_(musicologist)
has created a virtual symphony movement based on sketches by Beethoven, who apparently was planning to write a 10th symphony. What do I think of it? I think it is interesting. I always wondered what makes people “complete” or “re-create” unfinished compositions or works left in sketches by their creators. I know of and have done the “completion” of schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. What do I think of this idea? I find it interesting. I think Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ is perfectly complete with its two movements. Doing a program like that however gives you the perfect opportunity to talk about things that are difficult to talk about: music, composers’ intentions and the way a composition comes to existence and ultimately stands for itself.
My program for next Tuesday has many themes going on.
1) the general Beethoven obsession of musicians, musicologist and audiences
2) the influence of commercialized music business on programing and the expectations of audiences
3) Beethoven in pop culture
4) the orchestra as a phenomenon and its abuse in different ways (musicians miming instead of playing as technology takes over in ‘Second Self’)
5) humor and sarcasm in music

Here is one more fun fact you can call a happy coincidence. Michel van der Aa’s ‘Second Self’ was first performed at the Donaeschingen Musiktage in Germany exactly ten years ago to the date, on October 14, 2004. 🙂

Three Heroes (Radio Symphony Season Finale)

Posted on by

The 70th Season of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (MR Symphony) is coming to an end. On Wednesday, May 14 I am conducting the season finale of the orchestra’s classical series with the following program.
Bela Bartok: Two Portraits
Gregory Vajda: Csardas Obstine (Hungarian Premiere)
Franz Liszt: Piano Concerto #2
Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (The Hero’s Life)

Starting my very own “Strauss Year Celebration” (I will be doing two more tone poems in the coming year) I programmed ‘Ein Heldenleben’ as the main piece of the concert. I love the wit and the audacity of Strauss writing a piece about himself as The Hero. Since the tone poem was conceived as a modern version of Beethoven Symphony #3 “Eroica” (and a more effective and artistic version of “Wellington’s Victory”) it is clear that Strauss knew exactly who he was and what he could do and where he belonged. He belonged with all the great artists whose life itself was enough for a story to be put to music. Strauss had the ‘Chutzpah’ to write about nothing else but his own personal life (love-life included). Guess what, it worked!
As my much shorter in length and much more humble personal ‘Ein Heldenleben’ is titled “Csardas Obstine”. This composition was written in 2011 for the Liszt Anniversary and was premiered at two summer festivals in the US. Based on the experiences of these performances I created a new orchestration for the Hungarian Premiere. In this new version, instead of the full Liszt size orchestra, the solo piano is accompanied by 2 flutes (2. also piccolo), 1 english horn, 2 clarinets (2. also Eb clarinet), 1 bassoon, 2 trumpets, 1 tuba, 1 harp, 3 (or more) percussion players -#1 and #2 positioned down stage next to the solo piano-, 3 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, 3 basses. This reduction makes it easier for the chamber orchestra to keep up with the virtuoso material of the soloist. I have composed Csardas Obstine as a short (15 minutes) piece to go with Liszt Piano Concerto #2 which is the way we perform it this time as well. The title is borrowed from Liszt himself, who has also written two Csardas Obstines for solo piano. Other than an homage and a tribute to Franz Liszt (or Liszt Ferenc as Hungarians call him) my composition is telling the story of The Hungarians, just like the original two Obstinate Csardas’. There is a lot of energy in the piece, a lot of imagination, many ideas that start but then quickly end and do not develop into anything more substantial. Much like the A-major concerto by Liszt my composition has a form like Peer Gynt’s onion.
http://www.monologuearchive.com/i/ibsen_002.html

I hope we’ll all have fun peeling the musical layers together!

Talking about Peer Gynt, last time I’ve worked with pianist Gabor Farkas was two years ago and it was Grieg’s Piano concerto on the program. 🙂
http://biromusic.com/eng/muveszek/gabor-farkas/

To open the concert I picked one of Bartok’s most directly personal piece called Two Portraits. The two movements are “The Ideal” (practically the first movement of Violin Concerto #1) and “The Grotesque”. Both movements are based on the theme “D-F#-A-C#” which is the musical signature of violinist Stefi Geyer. Read more about the story of the First Violin Concerto and Two Portraits here:

http://www.cso.org

Three Heroes of mine: Bartok, Liszt and Richard Strauss. Three compositions with a personal story: Bartok, Vajda, Strauss. Two piano concertos and a wonderful pianist. This is all the Season Finale of the Hungarian Radio Symphony, and much more. Palace of the Arts is filming the performance. I hope I get to see it soon on TV!

PS: A day before stepping on the stage of Palace of the Arts again I am giving a presentation at the only English language Rotary Club in Hungary. The topic: “The Symphony Machine” -Programming, funding and fundraising in the world of Symphony Orchestras in the US and in Hungary.
Rotary Club Budapest-City
http://www.rc-budapest-city.hu/en/home.html

Dumb Art On Oaks

Posted on by

First of all, let me apologize for the title of this post.
1) The more I post the more I recognize the difficulty of finding a title that draws attention and will make people read my blog entry. The more I post the more I understand the pressure on online journalists and the direction online media is going. Do I like it? Not really, but I do understand the inevitability of things going the “tabloid way”. You really don’t want to end up like “white noise”.
2) I could not resist. 🙂
3) Please, do google ‘Dumb Art’ and look at the pictures. There are awesome, great pictures there. You are going to be surprised how many amazing works of great artists you will find this way, let alone all the really great street art.

OK, now that this is out of the way, I just have to say there is nothing ‘dumb art like’ about the program I am doing with pianist Lilya Zilberstein http://lilyazilberstein.webs.com/
and the Columbus Symphony this weekend. CSO website calls this Masterworks program a “Concerto Festival” http://columbussymphony.com/
and indeed three out of the four pieces are concertos (and very different ones)

Beethoven: Leonore Overture #3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonore_Overture_No._3
Bach: Concerto for Piano and Strings in D major
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpsichord_concertos_(J._S._Bach)
Stravinsky: Concerto in Eb “Dumbarton Oaks”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_in_E-flat_%22Dumbarton_Oaks%22
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto #1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._1_(Shostakovich)

There are two other elements that make this program exciting for me.

1) “Time Travel”
OK, so you can say that every classical concert is like taking a trip back in time, and you’d be right about that. However having one of the most famous neo-classical pieces on the program (Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks) is a true artistic time travel. This piece is like a 20th Century Brandenburg Concerto. Also I dare to say, that Shostakovich Piano Concerto #1 has many neo-classical moments in it as well. This makes the second half of the program a kind of ‘homage’ to the two composers in the first half. Then there is the fact, that we are playing a Harpsichord concerto with a modern piano as the solo instrument. J.S. Bach would have loved a Steinway if he could have possibly known one. I am afraid that the sound you’ll be hearing, as wonderful as it may be, is historically inappropriate. So there is another type of time travel for you, this time to an “alternate universe”. Bach’s music on the modern piano.
2) “The Trumpet Player’s Progress” (sorry, another Stravinsky reference)
In Beethoven’s Overture our principal trumpet player will leave the stage at a certain point then he’ll play two fanfares from back stage (he shall return to finish the first orchestral trumpet part). At the end of the concert the trumpet takes center stage as the secondary solo instrument of the Shostakovich Piano Concerto. Tom Battenberg, principal trumpet is doing an amazing job as he travels with ease between styles, genres and centuries.

2 Fifths on the 5th (Huntsville Season Finale)

Posted on by

I guess we should have scheduled this program for May. Beethoven 5th and Prokofiev 5th on May 5th (well OK, not quite a Cinco de Mayo program). In any case, Life is writing the best script. I wanted to finish the season with this special “Symphony #5” pairing and we happened to have a date on hold at the concert hall for April 5th. Two Fifths on the Fifth is definitely a catchy title.
Despite the busy weekend in downtown Huntsville we only have under 300 tickets to sell for this show and we still have 24 hours to go. Great job, PR Marketing Department! I guess the programming is not too bad, either…:)
We had a great season in Huntsville with many new and exciting ideas and great hits. The success of the Casual Classics series has exceeded all my expectations. Taking the Free Family Concert on the road was also a viable idea (and great fun as well). We had more than one sold out classical concerts, great attendance for the POPS series. We hosted inspiring guest artists like Alexander Corsantia and the amazing Bela Fleck.
Two days ago at the Major Donor Reception our CEO and President Dan Halcomb and myself announced the 14-15 season which is going to be our 60th. More and detailed information is coming here soon. I encourage you to visit Huntsville Symphony Orchestra website in the next couple of weeks and watch our page on FaceBook and on Twitter!

Music in the Mountains Summer Fest 2013 Second Weekend

Posted on by

“Gregory’s Musical Bookclub” tomorrow at Nevada Theater with great writers, Molly Fisk and Louis B. Jones reading their prose and poems to live music by Gershwin, Carmichael, Leroy Anderson, Bernstein, Copland, John Williams
“One Vision, The Music of Queen” with MIM Festival Orchestra and Jeans ‘n Classics on Saturday
http://www.jeansnclassics.com
Shostakovich Symphony #9 & Beethoven Symphony #9 on Sunday afternoon
Check out this website for details and tickets
http://www.musicinthemountains.org

Opera-Symphony, Anti-Anti Opera and the missing link

Posted on by

Busy 6 weeks ahead in Budapest, Hungary. I am starting with the final classical subscription concert of the MR Symphony Orchestra (Hungarian Radio Symphony) at Palace of the Arts. The program includes two symphonies numbered 9, one by Shostakovich and one by Beethoven. Two very different “Number Nines” juxtaposed. Now that I am doing Beethoven’s Choral Symphony three times in three months (April: Huntsville, May: Budapest, June: Music in the Mountains, California) I rediscovered the operatic, theatrical side of the final movement of this titanic piece for myself. (BTW I always thought that the Funeral March of Eroica was “music for a play”, just like Egmont) The famous opening lines by the bass-baritone
“O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!”(“Oh friends, not these tones!”)
written in recitativo style set the tone for this very special Rescue Opera called “The Last Movement of Beethoven Nine”.

http://www.mupa.hu

As part of a now decade old tradition the Palace of the Arts remembers the great composer Gyorgy Ligeti on (or around) his Birthday. He would be 90 years old this year. The time has come for Ligeti’s only opera, well his Anti-Anti-Opera as he called it to be performed as part of the Hommage To Ligeti series. I’ll be the conductor of the concert performance of the 1997 Salzburg Version of The Macabre at the helm of the Pannon Philharmonic in cooperation with
Neue Oper Wien
http://www.neueoperwien.at
and Amadinda Percussion Group
http://www.amadinda.com

Here is the summary of the story of this Anti-Anti-Opera
http://www.guardian.co.uk
Link to the Palace of the Arts production
http://www.mupa.hu

Now it seems that I could just move into the Palace of the Arts for the next couple of weeks. (BTW check out the architecture on their website. It is a gorgeous building.) After finishing the Ligeti project I dive into a “Real Opera” at last. As part of the internationally known Budapest Wagner Days I get to conduct Lohengrin semi-staged.
http://www.mupa.hu
The great thing about being a conductor, or a musician in general is that you get to wear many hats. From Beethoven through Ligeti to Wagner: one feels like an actor playing different characters. You are only as good an actor as much you can be yourself in the role you are playing. Studying Lohengrin is giving me great pleasure. Just like I re-discovered the operatic nature of Beethoven 9 for myself I did just make a discovery about Wagner’s romantic “Knight on a Swan” tale. Learning this opera made me realize how organically Wagner’s artistry is rooted in German musical theater tradition. It might sound like a cliche or a no-brainer to many (or to all who knows even a little about W) but it is different knowing something from your studies and actually living it as a musician. NOW I see (and feel) that Lohengrin is the “Missing Link” (along with The Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser of course) or rather the straight path between Weber’s Freischutz and Tristan und Isolde.

Ligeti 90
Wagner 200
Vajda 39 and One Lucky Guy with great pieces to conduct between now and mid June.

The Shostakovich-Beethoven and the Ligeti performances will be streamed live by the Hungarian Public Radio at
http://www.mr3-bartok.hu

A personal note on today’s concert

Posted on by

It happened to me again. I created a concert program a year and a half ago, and by the time I get on stage to conduct it, it gets a new meaning. The concert program is “wiser than its creator” and it definitely means more than just the sum of its pieces. Honestly, it is chilling, mysterious and somewhat scary to perform today’s program on the week of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Kernis: Musica Celestis
Bernstein: Chichester Psalms
Beethoven: Symphony #9

As a musician and the Music Director of the Huntsville Symphony I will dedicate this concert to the memory of the victims of the Boston bombings. We will also remember all the heroes of the horrific events. We must remember that there were, there are so many people who helped when it was most needed. We do what we can as musicians. The program is built like a huge “crescendo”. We’ll remember the victims with the slow, celestial opening. Chichester Psalms is a piece of music to help us cope with our loss and to “sing out loud” everything what goes through your mind in the aftermath of the events. And finally Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is our long journey from horrors and doubts to consolation, to hope and to the joy that is being born from the compassionate acts of good people.