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Eotvos Conducts Kurtag and Ligeti: Peter Eötvös (conductor), Natalia Zagorinskaya (soprano), Katalin Károlyi (mezzo-soprano), Ildikó Vékony (cimbalom), Miklós Perényi (cello), UMZE Ensemble, Amadinda Percussion Group, Zankel Hall, New York City, 31.1.2009 (BH)

Kurtág: Messages of the Late R. V. Troussova, Op. 17 (1976-1980)
Kurtág: Splinters, Op. 6c (1962 and 1973)
Kurtág: Four Poems by Anna Akhmatova, Op. 41 (1997-2008, World Premiere)
Ligeti: Melodien (1971)
Ligeti: Cello Concerto (1966)
Ligeti: Sippal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel (With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles) (2000)


The spare, emotional world of György Kurtág and that of his not-so-spare compatriot, György Ligeti, made interesting bedfellows in this astonishing concert at Zankel Hall, one of the evenings in Carnegie Hall's Celebrating Hungary.  Peter Eötvös conducted the UMZE Ensemble, one night after leading an evening of his own compositions.

Kurtág first reached international attention with his uncompromising Messages of the Late R. V. Troussova, a 21-song cycle using wrenching, hallucinatory texts by Rimma Dalos, a Russian poet living in Hungary.  When soprano Natalia Zagorinskaya began "Odinochestvo" ("Loneliness"), her voice seemed a bit small for the job.  But then it turned out that her wan tone, capped with a desolate glissando at the end, was merely her strategy for the opening, rather than revealing all of Kurtág's colors at once. 

The cycle grows progressively stranger, with a cumulative effect that is harrowing.  The introduction to "Chastushka" (which begins, "Bite me on the head, bite me on the breast!") sounds like a deranged marching band.  The composer sets "Great misery—that's love.  Is there any greater happiness?" with delicate cimbalom strokes, as if the words would somehow be comforting.  "Kameshki" ("Pebbles") uses kaleidoscopic instrumental colors to depict the stones, and in "Tonkaia igla" ("A slender needle"), the effect is piercing, like glass breaking.  Ms. Zagorinskaya was in complete control of Kurtág's unconventional meldings of music and text, and the UMZE Ensemble provided exquisitely calibrated touches of sound—truly, sometimes that's all they were—to assist her.

In what may have been the night's sleeper hit, Ildikó Vékony gave a virtuoso performance of Splinters, originally conceived for guitar and adapted for cimbalom.  In four compact movements totaling seven minutes, it covers a huge array of textures, before reaching a haunting ending with a low D, repeated softly as it fades into the distance.  Ms. Vékony's concentration on the instrument was almost supernatural.  Only after a respectful silence at the end did the audience break out into whoops of delight.  As she took her curtain calls she seemed slightly stunned, as if she didn't quite know what she had accomplished.

Ms. Zagorinskaya and the UMZE musicians returned for the world premiere of Four Poems by Anna Akhmatova, written over the span of a decade.  It is brief, gossamer and adds a huge array of percussion instruments to the chamber ensemble.  The final song, "Voronezh," incorporates a whip and a siren to evoke "…a whole town…encased in ice…Trees, walls, snow, as if under glass." 

After intermission came Ligeti's gorgeous Melodien, for 5 strings, winds and brass.  This extraordinarily beautiful performance evoked droplets of rain running down slow-moving panes of sound—a glassy surface teeming with activity underneath.  Next came cellist Miklós Perényi as soloist in the Cello Concerto, with its arresting opening: the cello sustains a single note that, with the ensemble, slowly evolves into a microtonal mass, like watching a cell divide right before your eyes.  It is not a conventional concerto for the instrument, but instead exploits a vast range of flickering trills, tremolos, and tiny rustlings.

To close the evening, mezzo-soprano Katalin Károlyi and the Amadinda Percussion Group gave a totally winning reading of Sippal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel, Ligeti's exploration of the poems of Sándor Weöres.  With a variety of imaginative percussion effects (including slide whistles, harmonicas and ocarinas), the composer plunges into a world of restless syllables that sound like oddly discomforting children's rhymes.  Ms. Károlyi and the percussionists seemed bursting with enthusiasm, matched by that of the audience cheering at the end.

Bruce Hodges


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