Culture shock

Eh, not really. Budapest hasn’t changed as much as I’d expected. And I’m very glad.

Just came from a rehearsal. Words cannot describe how good it is to hear live instruments playing what you’ve only heard in your head or via MIDI playback. A few tempo disputes, which we’ll surely settle over a few rounds of p�linka later on. Otherwise, hooray!

I’m sitting in an airless, smokey flourescent-lit internet caf�. Must go now. Must ….. breathe…. air…..

UPDATE: Here is said internet cafe. The the right of it is Budapest’s first Burger King, which opened when I lived here around 1991. It was said to be the largest Burger King in the world at the time. Shrug. It had wonderfully tacky decor. I must go and see if they’ve toned it down.

Befejeztem!

So, as of yesterday, Letter To Hungary is now out the door, delivered electronically to a printing store in Budapest. (See, I keep telling people: the internet is good for some things.)

Turns out, generating parts using Sibelius 4 has not been the Hamptons clambake I’d anticipated based on the hype. (Don’t get me wrong; I loooove Sibelius.) Also, the piece is so busy that for the first time ever, I’ve had to deliver a set of parts without a solution for every pageturn problem. I’m not an orchestral player or a professional copyist, so I simply couldn’t figure out how to get it done. Tips and tricks are welcome here.

Here’s a first pass at some brief program notes.

Hungarian Republic Day

On this day in 1956, what began as a small student demonstration snowballed into a national uprising. The students were joined 100,000 angry citizens as they marched to more impromptu demonstrations at various sites around Budapest. At the Parliament building they were met by Soviet tanks who fired on the crowd. The demonstrations then escalated into street battles between average citizens with Molotov cocktails and a force of Hungarian security police and the Soviet army.

In response, the Hungarian Communist Party installed a new Prime Minster, Imre Nagy, who they believed would placate the people to a degree. Nagy almost immediately announced plans to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and hold multi-party elections. On November 4th, the Soviet Union sent tanks and airstrikes to take back control of Hungary. Nagy, who had taken assylum at the Yugoslav embassy, was tricked into surrendering (they promised him safe passage out of Hungary), and eventually executed.

The political circumstances and the events of these eleven days were too complicated to describe in detail here. However, dozens of good books have been written about what happened in Hungary in 1956.

Fast forward…

I went to Budapest in September, 1989 for what would be a three-year adventure in cake consumption (oh, and composition lessons too, I guess). On October 23rd, I had only been in Budapest for about six weeks. That evening, a crowd gathered in front of the Parliament building, where police had fired on the crowd 33 years earlier, and quietly held candles as they received the news that the People’s Republic of Hungary was now to be known simply as the “Republic of Hungary”, and that national multi-party elections would be held in May, 1990. During the next three years, I got to witness up close the beginning of an amazing transformation.

Until 1989, the 1956 uprising was never discussed officially. The official line was to clear your throat and stare at the floor while mumbling something about a “counterrevolutionary incident”. But starting in 1989, the uprising was officially acknowledged, and now October 23rd is a national holiday.

Slip Into Some Bartók

Today I found myself thinking about one of Bartók’s lesser-known works, the “Twenty Seven Choruses”.

My friend M., over on Music in a Suburban Scene, has expressed disappointment in the Bartók String Quartets, making the valid point that a lot of relentless dissonance can be boring. In defending the Quartets, I found myself referring to the Choruses, because they reveal the same genius as the quartets, only in a more accessible environment.

While I agree with M. in general that dissonance for its own sake makes pretty uninteresting music, it must be said that the dissonance in the Quartets comes about through a very sensible system of voice leading and a sound harmonic framework. By building upon tiny melodic fragments, and simply letting the harmonies fall out naturally, Bartók enters an expressive sound world where it’s worth meeting him halfway. After a few listenings, you realize that it’s more about what he’s doing with his melodic material and rhythm than harmony. Yes, you’ll be disappointed if you’re insisting upon predictable resolutions and goose-bumpy chords (although, they’re there if you’re listening). If you can join Bartók in this place, you’ll find the Quartets very satisfying.

Anyone who is Bartók Quartet-curious might consider first getting to know the Twenty-seven Choruses, for women’s or children’s voices. These are in a much more lyrical style than most of his instrumental work, but display the same contrapuntal and expressive proclivities that make the Quartets great. These very attractive and entertaining little pieces, which use Hungarian folk texts but entirely original music, were written in the mid-Thirties, around the same time as Quartet #5.

Incidentally, these make great teaching pieces for choral conductors. Some of them are deceptively complicated, and an example of just about any conducting problem can be found here.

Folk elements in Letter to Hungary

Letter to Hungary draws inspiration from Hungarian folk music, which I’ve studied and loved this music since my time living in Budapest in the early 1990′s.

Using a folksong anthology that I’ve had since those days, I found a song that’s appropriate, both in what the text conveys and in that it bears some of the lovely intervals and modal shifts typically found in these folksongs.

Details on the Budapest concert

Since the beginning of August, I’ve been working on a new piece for the Hungarian Chamber Symphony Orchestra. It will be a fifteen-minute piece for strings, and the title is Letter to Hungary. With this concert, the HCSO is launching their “American Composers’ Podium”, a series of concerts and hopefully other events that will help promote the work of American composers among Hungarian audiences.

The concert will take place on November 18th at the Italian Institute in Budapest. Other composers featured will be Malcolm Hawkins and Sara Doncaster. You can read full details on the American Composers Podium on the HCSO’s stunning new web site .

New Chamber Orchestra Commission

Toward the beginning of August, I was invited by the Hungarian Chamber Symphony Orchestra to compose a new work for string orchestra to be performed in November 2005. This is for a special program of American repertoire called the “American Composers’ Podium”.