classical music - Hámori Máté

Dream of the motherland

2022.08.14.

Béla Bartók, classical music, Concertó, conductor

The expression “most Hungarian” is a stupid one, but somehow this is what comes to mind when mentioning Bartók’s Concerto. Yet he wrote it 7000 km from Hungary, in his voluntary exile, and there is not a single folk song quotation in it, even though it is in English, which refers to a Western European baroque form, even though his music is completely universal and, if you like, international.

In spite of all that. It’s not homesickness or despair or pain that this music transmits to me. What the sounds outline is a picture of a perfect Hungary that never existed, but which Bartók nevertheless made an inner reality. Of his personal homeland.

The crickets and frogs in the Elegy (3rd Movement) may have been roosting at Saranac Lake in the US, where Bartók composed his piece, but the melody of that Szekler lament in the movement still unmistakably places this magical night on the other side of the ocean. In the 4th Movement, the quotation of “You are beautiful, you are wonderful, Hungary” is not, in my opinion, a protagonist, merely a scenery element, yet it adds a Carpathian Basin watermark to a movement that is bustling with world upheaval and cataclysm. Just as the accents of the second movement’s playful couplets unmistakably echo the weight formulae of Hungarian folk dance music – either way, this cosmopolitan symphony speaks Hungarian.

And it makes me smile just to know that this Hungarian language is understood all over the world. Ady, Attila József, Kosztolányi did not have the privilege of these two together: the beautiful Hungarian language and the world at large that understands it. Bartók did – but it’s his personal tragedy that only after his death. Today, however, the Concerto is undoubtedly the most performed and recorded Hungarian piece in the world, which speaks more eloquently than any far-fetched Hungarianism or “Hungaricum” about a great man and about us: our language, our homeland. Listen to it, withhold and learn. For there is something to learn and someone to learn it from.

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Author: Máté Hámori

Sound of the baton

2022.08.12.

classical music, conductor, Máté Hámori, Sound of the baton

**A widespread, a sort of a „final argument” against conductors, rubbed preferentially to our faces by orchestral musicians half joking, half seriously: baton makes no sound.**

The bon mot is true by not being true, being a blessing and a curse for a conductor. The only musician not making any sound (okay, many of them sniffle, gurgle or even sing quite intensively while conducting, but this is not necessarily a part of the artistic performance), still, he is the one who receives the most of the celebration (or derision) after a concert.

Why is that? What exactly does a conductor do onstage? And what does he do at the rehearsal? Why is he strolling along the street with a score in his hands? What happens if he flubs? What is the similarity between football and orchestral playing? Is a conductor really like a potato? How much does a tuba player practice? (Indeed, how much?) What should you do about contemporary music? Should opera houses be blown up or built up? Why is music the most perfect artistic form?

This blog is about these questions and more. This blog is about these questions and more. I’m not sure I can always give exact answers, but that’s not the purpose: I want our slightly enchanted world to be open to those who „just” sit down at a concert and want to have a good time, because at the end of the day it’s all (the concert hall, the orchestra, the instrument, practicing, the composer) for them, the audience. And we musicians, especially the conductor, are the eccentric kind, wanting to deliver as much as possible of the wonder that music brings to our lives.

Well, this is the reason why this blog has come to light.

Of course, one question remains: should a musician try to write at all? It’s a challenge that can go either way, nevertheless, uncertainty is soon dispelled by the teaching of an eternal optimist:

“No business without risk.”
(Fülig Jimmy)

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Author: Máté Hámori

classical-music

Dream of the motherland

Sound of the baton

A widespread, a sort of a „final argument” against conductors, rubbed preferentially to our faces by orchestral musicians half joking, half seriously: baton makes no sound.

**A widespread, a sort of a „final argument” against conductors, rubbed preferentially to our faces by orchestral musicians half joking, half seriously: baton makes no sound.**