location: Oradea, Roman Catholic Bishop's Palace
Date: Wednesday, December 18, 2024, 7 p.m.
Written by Gábor Tóth
…this time the Kaganovskiy Musical Evenings (KZE) were not chamber music, but chamber orchestral, as befits the holiday, it was long, but at the same time, as I said, festive, long for everyone, for the performers (they gave it their all again), for the audience (full house, approx. 250+ people), but it was worth it. I would actually start with this, because after all, we are talking about 7 (!) baroque concertos in a row.
Vivaldi was one of the main characters. I will get personal again, I was in Vienna once, right on Karlsplatz, the Viennese are excellent tourist attractions, there is a plaque to Vivaldi there, later they thought of him, who from Venice, when he started to go out of fashion at that time, was looking for work in Vienna, but he didn't get a chance and died there in misery and poverty. Künstlerleben... Then, fortunately, Vivaldi's baroque became a renaissance in the 20th century, even if later, according to Stravinsky, also a 20th century urban legend, he somewhat criticized that Vivaldi was a kind of serial producer in terms of concertos. Fortunately, the KZE understands Vivaldi, very well and topically, so it was not about that now, in fact, on the contrary, baroque for baroque, time and sound for the location...
So now we were able to enjoy Vivaldi first and foremost. I can't help but say that when I was younger I had a Vivaldi selection on tape, so I was able to listen to most of it again now. But how! What a taste. For example, in solo, Artur is excellent at transferring the acoustic possibilities of Venice to a Baroque palace in Várad, and how he makes the sounds float.
Then, switching from Vivaldi to Telemann, Eszter brings out the human-feeling tones of the bass violin in the Telemann Viola Concerto (yes, this is the composer who composed more than Bach...).
I would also like to mention Ági Kállay's cello playing, a fundamental sound of strings and pulling energy, she is also an honorary guest as a core member of the Patachich trio, I always feel so much spice in her human and musical sounds, there and then, where and when it is needed.
Erich Türk brought his harpsichord with him, not only with his well-known extraordinary expert continuo playing, but also physically, specifically, because he assembled, disassembled, and carried the instrument so that it would be here with him, so his participation was a special oasis - I admit, after the concert I interrupted him so that I could try out the keys a little.
But back to the concert. Then, in addition to the very well-selected professionals, there were also young people in the group and in front of the group, some of them were students, young people, this is a tradition, they once again included younger people in the program to give them the experience and opportunity to perform and show off.
Since the program guide was once again professional, I won't go into details about music history, except to say that Corelli's "Christmas" piece was truly fitting, both for the place and the situation, since Corelli, the creator of the genre, once wrote it for a church priest who supported art.
Silent Night followed stylishly as the closing song, in three languages, with a distributed text. Gruber remained the most famous of all.
The long, final round of applause was not only for the hearty Christmas concert, but I think for the entire season of KZE as well.
I would like to close my glossary. Or, for the sake of order, I will continue with the program performed and its truly expert presenters. And one more thought. At one time, in addition to my other organizational work, I also prepared program booklets myself. It is no small task (!) to document myself, to remain accurate, to research every detail, year, index number, related author's thoughts, quotes, music history, genre, interpretation aspects and much, much more, etc. It is a special thoroughness and a chivalrous gesture towards the audience that here it is customary to indicate even the duration of the pieces performed on the KZE's demanding leaflet...
And then the words were spoken (with the soloists at the ends of the lines):
Vivaldi Violin Concerto in A minor RV 356 – Artur Kaganovskiy
Georg Philipp Telemann Viola Concerto in G major TWV: 51:G9 – Kaganovskiy Eszter
Vivaldi Cello Concerto in D minor RV 407 – Ágnes Kállay
Vivaldi Concerto for Violin and Cello in B-flat major RV 547 – Artur Kaganovskiy and Ágnes Kállay
Vivaldi Concerto for Double Violin in A minor RV 522 – Artur Kaganovskiy and Camelia Părcălab
Vivaldi Quartet Concerto in B minor RV 580 – Artur Kaganovskiy, István Ferencz, Camelia Părcălab, Dávid György Hunor
And finally, the multi-movement Corelli – Fatto per la notte di Natale, G minor Concerto grosso, with a manger-shepherd theme, but of course much richer to say. Soloists: Artur Kaganovskiy, Simon Csongor, Ágnes Kállay.
And then let's not forget about the entire team coming from all over (Budapest, Cluj-Napoca, Arad, Szatmár, etc.).
1st violin: Artur Kaganovskiy, Cătălina Trincă, Gabriela Sebestyen. István Ferencz, Dávid Hunor György
2nd violin: Simon Csongor, Simon Ammer Helga, Camelia Părcălab, Todor Gyöngyi
Viola: Eszter Kaganovskiy, Marcel Cameniță, Gavril Cenadan
Violin: Ágnes Kállay, Darius Tereu, Cristina Ungurean
Double bass: Róbert György
Harpsichord: Erich Türk
English
Hungarian