Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Cadogan Hall
28 November 2024
Conductor: Alexander Shelley
Piano: Janos Balazs
After a breathtaking sprint through Smetana’s Bartered Bride overture featuring some lovely work from second violins, it was time for the centre piece of this concert which provided the overall title: Tribute to a Hungarian Legend.
I am not usually a fan of being talked at during concerts. I prefer to let the music do the speaking. I have to admit, however, that Alexander Shelley does it very well and given the newness of the next piece, it probably benefited from a verbal introduction. Moreover, getting a piano into position with a large orchestra on Cadogan Hall’s relatively small stage is a fiddly operation so it made sense to provide the audience with something else to focus on: Shelley talking, as he also did at the beginning of the concert and after the interval.
The work features, directly and indirectly, three Hungarians so, unsurprisingly, there were many Hungarian people in the audience for this interesting UK premiere. Gyorgy Cziffra (1921-1994) was a renowned pianist, composer, conductor and teacher whose difficult life included imprisonment by both the Nazis and Stalin. Peter Eotovos (who died earlier this year) composed this four movement piano concerto, Cziffra Psodia, as a tribute to Cziffra and dedicated it to Janos Balazs who was at Cadogan Hall to play it.
Gyorgy Cziffra
It’s an immensely complex work, quite hard to take in at a single hearing. No wonder Balazs needed the music up and was evidently reading it, while there were many brows furrowed with concentration in the orchestra. Overtly intended to be programme music it “describes” some of the ups and downs of Cziffra’s life and includes dissonance, tranquillity and many unsettling passages. Balazs played it with loving care and phenomenal technique, listening carefully to the leader’s solo passages, which often use quarter tones and interrogative glissandi. Almost the best thing, though, was the cimbalom (Anna Bradley), effectively a second solo line, representing Cziffra’s father who played it with his son. It has a glorious twangy, haunting sound which fits the piece perfectly.
Balazs played a Lizst Hungarian Rhapsody as his encore, telling the audience that it provided some of the ideas for the concerto we’d just heard. It was a well-warmed-up, bravura performance. His fingers moved so fast in the final variation that they blurred.
The concert was completed, after the interval, with a performance of Brahms’s second symphony, as familiar as the concerto had been otherwise. Shelley, however, now conducting without a score, highlighted the delicate darkness in the opening Allegro non troppo with tender, plaintive work from lower strings and warm horn solos. I also liked the balance in the second movement with nicely played wind parts. Shelley digs out and runs with every melody – and this is Brahms so there are plenty of those – but he never wallows.
The sunny uplands of the allegretto featured some impressively percussive string work followed by contrasting elegant lyricism and I was astonished by the speed of the final movement which was “con spirito” in every sense. If you can do it at that speed the music dances off the page. Shelley also ensured we also heard the nifty timp work and gave us spectacularly rousing last few lines.
