KODALY conducts KODALY = Psalmus Hungaricus; Missa Brevis; Budavari Te Deum; Summer Evening; Con. for Orch. – Hungaroton

KODALY conducts KODALY = Psalmus Hungaricus, Op. 13; Missa Brevis; Budavari Te Deum; Summer Evening; Concerto for Orchestra – Maria Gyurkovics, Edit Ganes, Timea Cser and Iren Szecsody, sopranos/Endre Roesler, tenor/Tibor Udvardy, tenor/Gyorgy Littasy and Andras Farago, basses/Budapest Chorus/Hungarian State Orchestra/Budapest Philharmonic Society Orchestra (Summer Evening, Concerto)/Zoltan Kodaly 
Hungaroton HCD 32677-78, (2 CDs) 58:51; 65:32  [Distr. By Qualiton] ****:
Zoltan Kodaly (1882-1967) took up the baton relatively late in his career, 1927, when he was already forty-five-years-old, and only because of a specific request that he lead an Amsterdam ensemble in his own Psalmus Hungaricus. On the occasion of Kodaly’s conducting in Hungary, critic Aladar Toth wrote, “Kodaly conducts with sure, clear gestures that would put many an experienced conductor to shame. He is precise, decided, and authoritative.” Hungaroton has amassed (for a 1982 LP edition) recordings Kodaly made 1956-1960, edited and remastered by Janos Gyori.

Psalmus Hungaricus remains Kodaly’s most famous large work, conceived as it was for the 1923 celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the unification of the cities Buda and Pest. Recorded 5-7 March 1957, the performance casts a strangely pietistic mood, looking back on Hungary’s tempestuous history and the Hungarian freedom movement of the 1920s. Tenor Endre Roesler intones a text from the 16th Century, a psalm by Mihaly Veg of Kecskemet, a paraphrase of Psalm 55. Kodaly draws a parallel between the strife suffered by Biblical King David and the struggles of the Hungarian people. A kind of modally harmonized rondo, the piece utilizes pentatonic scales and a parlando vocal style to achieve its patriotic luminosity. The first part rises to two climaxes; then, at the words, “So, in Jehovah I will put my trust,” the entire emotional tenor softens and becomes both meditative and spiritually exalted.
The Missa Brevis in D Major has a tortured history, composed 1942-1945. What had begun as an Organ Mass the composer rescored for mixed choir and full orchestra while hiding in a convent from the Nazis in 1944. In eight sections, the piece contains little of Kodaly’s folk style but rather relies on Lisztian touches, like the use of three high sopranos to counter the rest of the chorus in the Kyrie and Agnus Dei. The Qui Tollis in the Gloria recurs in the Agnus Dei, and the Kyrie returns in variation in the Dona nobis pacem. Kodaly expressed his desire to “stick precisely to the liturgy. . . .I have tried to reproduce both the overall mood and the rhythm of the unheard text.”  The Gloria quite explodes in exaltation, while the longest movement, the Credo, hovers in an ecstatic space equally haunted, almost tragic in intensity.  The dark Rembrandt color of the Sanctus shimmers in benign harmony, the “Hosanna in excelsis!” other-worldly. Bassoon riffs play against a modally harmonized chorus in the Benedictus. Again, the chorus exclaims, “Hosanna in excelsis!” in even more rarified extreme harmony. The Agnus Dei provides the most “dramatic” or operatic moment, though its dark plaints sound an atmosphere of drear weeping for the human condition. At last, the Ite missa est, the analogy to John 19:30: “It is finished.” The heavy brass work in collaboration with the chorus creates a thickly chromatic texture, a spiritual world whose sense of acceptance is still marked by anguish.
The Budavari Te Deum for solo voices, mixed chorus, and orchestra of 1936 celebrates the 250th anniversary of the recapture of Buda Castle from the Turks. Both tragic and victorious, the piece shares a spirit in common with the 1923 Psalmus Hungaricus, a desire to conserve the past and to illuminate a future of freedom. The people exalt the spirit of thanksgiving, a communal expression of survival as expressed in Kodaly’s neo-Baroque polyphonic style. Kodaly exploits the interval of a fourth to bring a folk or Magyar dimension to the otherwise European liturgy. The more martial episodes present Kodaly at his most “Verdian,” if the sonic similarities to Aida mean anything. All of Kodaly’s musical forces for his 1-4 October 1958 recording are unconditionally inspired.
The symphonic poem Summer Evening (1906) found its way to revision in 1929 when Arturo Toscanini requested a new orchestral work of Kodaly. A sweet landscape piece in the manner of Respighi, it depicts “summer evenings amidst fields of wheat at harvest time, along the ripples of the Adriatic.” We can hear some Debussy and Liszt influences, a lushness of (brass) orchestration that might nod once or twice to Richard Strauss. The work’s premier had marked Kodaly’s emergence as an orchestral composer of note. Occasionally, a Lydian fourth or modal harmony–anticipatory of the later Hary Janos or Peacock Variations–makes its nationalistic presence felt. The concluding work, the Concerto for Orchestra (1940) marked the 50th anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (rec. 5-6 July 1960) and had its premier by that organization, led by Frederick Stock in 1941. A Magyar spirit permeates the work, which is divided into three large sections and again subdivided in the manner of Liszt’s works, like the A Major Piano Concerto. A Baroque contrapuntal sensibility reigns, but the mood of the opening Allegro risoluto is strictly upbeat and optimistic. Trumpet, violin, flute, oboe, cello, and viola each has its moment against the larger body of instruments. The cello segues to the expansive and inflamed Largo, which serves as a passacaglia involving the clarinet, flute, harp, and solo strings. The last section acts like a Scherzo and Trio, with its Tempo primo that recurs at the finale, interrupted by a relatively brief Largo section. Recycling materials from the two prior movements, the Baroque shifts of orchestral mass captivate with their aerial acrobatics, a real showpiece for any top-flight orchestra.
–Gary Lemco