Blooms From a Free-Enterprise Hungary

When Hungarian communism died its bloodless death in 1989, gifted people in Hungary’s recording field lost their jobs along with the hacks, as the new government strove to erase all vestiges of the old order.

One regrettable act was the “cleansing” of Hungaroton, the state-run recording enterprise. Those who weren’t fired left, seeing little hope in the efforts of a politically liberal but musically uninformed directorate replacing an informed one that was essentially apolitical and relatively free from government interference.

The reformers’ ultimate mistake--as today’s moribund Hungaroton, with its ever-decreasing state subsidy, must be aware--was the sacking of Jeno Bors (pronounced Borsh), whose enlightened administration had made his label not only an internationally recognized artistic success but one of communism’s rare business successes.

Much of the background for this article was obtained during the writer’s visit last fall to Budapest and an introduction to Andras Szekely, a former Hungaroton producer.

Szekely reported that with backing from a music-loving Hungarian-American banker named Peter Rona and the marketing expertise and distribution facilities of Harmonia Mundi France, Eastern Europe’s first modern free-enterprise label, Quintana, would shortly be launched.

Its chief executive officer would be none other than Jeno Bors, who had brought with him most of Hungary’s top artists, producers and recording engineers.

Quintana’s initial recordings have now appeared on these shores: a remarkable, laudable maiden effort, granted the participation of some highly experienced maidens.

The performers are first rate, the sonics generally superb, in a release that presupposes a highly sophisticated buying public.

Quintana continues Hungaroton’s sterling work with the period-instrument Capella Savaria, a stunningly accomplished ensemble based in the provincial city of Szombathely (population 80,000).

The group is under the direction of its flutist, Pal Nemeth, in two Szekely-produced releases that focus on the silvery soprano of Maria Zadori, whose voice has all the agility and, happily, none of the blanched tone commonly associated with “authentic” singers of 18th-Century repertory.

One program (903010) offers three solo cantatas of J. S. Bach, including the familiar “Weichet nur” (BWV 202), sung, played and recorded with exquisite lightness and clarity.

The other (903015) is devoted to Mozart sacred works. “Exsultate, jubilate” is delivered by Zadori with cool precision (more of the title’s exultation would have been welcome). And, with the assistance of Klaus Mertens, an agile bass, and a fine choral ensemble, such rarities as the 11-year-old’s astonishingly dramatic “Grabmusik” are given readings considerably more polished and committed than that offered by forces under Neville Marriner in a recent Philips release.

Another treasure among the label’s introductory offerings combines Haydn’s last three string quartets, the two of Opus 77 and the fragmentary Opus 103 (903001). The performers are the Budapest-based Festetics Quartet, who play with a degree of vigor, clarity and technical ease that only incidentally suggests period “strangeness.” The Festetics, with its vigorous, firm-toned (i.e., non-droopy) work gives every impression of being the antiquarian quartet likely to make the breakthrough to listener acceptance alongside the best performers on modern instruments.

Two Quintana discs tackle standard repertory. The string serenades of Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Grieg are elegantly played by the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, directed by concertmaster Janos Rolla (903005). The other is a recital of mostly familiar music for or about children from Hungary’s top international pianist, Zoltan Kocsis (903006).

Kocsis, in Mozart’s Sonata in C, K. 545, Schumann’s “Kinderszenen,” Debussy’s “Children’s Corner” and miniatures by Beethoven and Bartok, is so aggressively intent on stripping the music of any trace of wimpiness that his interpretations emerge sounding petulant and overheated.

The release is rounded out by a concert of Elizabethan and Restoration “Songs to My Lady,” skillfully delivered by veteran countertenor Paul Esswood and lutanist Jurgen Hubscher (903012); Mozart opera transcriptions played by the excellent Budapest Winds (903008), and a rousing collection of traditional music from all over the Balkans on a host of exotic strings, winds and percussion played by an ensemble of unexplained provenance called Nikola and His Friends, Nikola himself seemingly performing on no fewer than 16 instruments.

And as Hungaroton sinks in the east, it does so with a brave display of past glories, recorded during the waning days of the Bors directorship: another two-CD set (31011-12) of fortepianist Malcolm Bilson’s superbly vital, stylish readings of the Mozart sonatas, and a three-CD (31030-32) collection of Mozart’s five authenticated violin concertos, the great Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364, the Concertone and several briefer works.

The polished--to the point of slickness--performances are by violinist Gyorgy Pauk, with Rolla directing the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra.

One trusts that whoever is manning the crumbling fort at Hungaroton has the taste and sensitivity to weep--both at what they have lost and what Quintana has gained.