Love-Hate Relationship Adds Drama to Concerts

The musical relationship between Hungary and Austria is complex and fascinating, especially as we increasingly try to make sense of our own multicultural society. Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer enthusiastically led two programs of Viennese music for the final appearances of his Budapest Festival Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl over the weekend. But he also hinted at the historic tensions between the two countries when he introduced the Rakoczy March from Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust,” which ended Friday’s concert.

Fischer explained to the audience how the piece is really an account of the Hungarian resistance to Austrian conquerors 250 years ago, and he had a member of the orchestra demonstrate how Berlioz adapted his melodies from secret signals Hungarian fighters made on folk instruments. The three cities that became Budapest were very close to 18th and 19th century Vienna, musically, through geography and politics. But Hungary also maintained its feisty musical independence. And nothing much has changed. Hungary is still close to Vienna, and still has a distinct musical personality.

It is a pity that Fischer in his week here gave no indication of the lively music scene in Budapest today, but one could sense it anyway in the way the orchestra played Mozart and Strauss over the weekend.

The Friday program (repeated Saturday) was called “A Night in Old Vienna,” concentrating on Mozart in the first half, Johann Strauss Jr. and Lehar in the second. Sunday was all-Mozart, with the Symphony No. 34 and the Requiem. Vienna wasn’t always in the picture. (Some of the Mozart was youthful, from Salzburg; and, of course, Berlioz was French.) But it was always present, and that was what made these programs interesting.

Fischer’s Mozart is dramatic and assertive, and quite unlike the lighter approach to Mozart that has become common. This was particularly noticeable Friday with Andrea Rost, a young Hungarian soprano making quick career strides on the international opera scene, helped along by a recording contract from Sony. Rost sang “Crudele . . . Non mi dir” from “Don Giovanni” and the early “Esultate, Jubilate,” with the robust power and stylistic cluelessness of an Eastern European singer of old. Her vibrato can be troublingly wide for Mozart; she swallows words; she goes for broad, crowd-pleasing effects. Fischer was her accomplice.

And yet there was something compelling in this, and also in Fischer’s too-bracing, practically rowdy reading of “A Little Night Music.” This was, in a sense, defiant Mozart, challenging not just the smoother Viennese style but the lighter modern approach to older music. Such too were the altogether more successful Mozart performances on Sunday. The Symphony No. 34 (with a later Minuet in C, K. 409, included, although not noted in the program) was Mozart’s last symphony written for his hometown of Salzburg before moving to Vienna. His Requiem was his final, though uncompleted, masterpiece, and performed here in the best known version, completed shortly after Mozart’s death by his pupil Franz Xaver Sussmayr.

For both of these quite different works, Fischer and his players were again bracing, big-boned and dramatic. The glory of his orchestra is the strings, which have a bite that you won’t hear anywhere else. The effect can be overbearing, as it was in the first movement of the symphony, or a little sloppy, as in the last. But it can also be highly theatrical, as in the Requiem. The singers (Cynthia Lawrence, Paula Rasmussen, Gordon Gietz and Peter Rose) and the Los Angeles Master Chorale were pressed hard, and that was to their advantage. This was a tense performance, but one that could stop the heart.

For the operettas of Strauss and Lehar on Friday, Fischer wanted to have fun, and it too was defiant, downright subversive fun. Strauss liked funny business with cute percussion and train whistles now and then, which Fischer exaggerated merrily. Rost’s stunning performance of the Csardas from “Die Fledermaus” was both grand and full of folk spirit. These are musicians who may know the world at large, but who continue to serve their culture well.