{"id":1706,"date":"2016-06-26T19:06:15","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T19:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hollerung.hu\/?page_id=1706"},"modified":"2021-02-15T13:43:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T13:43:35","slug":"karmesteri-szerepek","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hollerung.hu\/en\/karmesteri-szerepek\/","title":{"rendered":"CONDUCTOR\u2019S ROLES"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hommage \u00e1 Kurt Masur<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Dvo\u0159\u00e1k: Symphony No. 8<\/span><\/p>\n

25 April 2010, Italian Cultural Institute, Budapest<\/strong><\/p>\n

Budafok Dohn\u00e1nyi Orchestra<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen. Warmly welcome to our concert today, as part of our Understanding Music series. I dedicate this lecture to the world famous conductor Kurt Masur. I was the Master\u2019s student in Weimar, then GDR during my college years. Kurt Masur is a particularly special personality; I can perfectly recall his human habit, communication, relation to the orchestra and us, his students. I\u2019ve met him several times since, moreover, I once had the privilege to replace him and conduct the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 12 concerts, which must\u2019ve influenced my above recollection. First I\u2019d like to introduce Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s Symphony No. 8, and afterwards tell you what I learnt from Kurt Masur, i.e. about the conductor\u2019s role, the essence of the conductor\u2019s behaviour.<\/p>\n

Dvo\u0159\u00e1k is a highly popular composer, the audience love him all over the world. Even if you don\u2019t happen to know him so well, you\u2019ll immediately like Dvo\u0159\u00e1k. Naturally, Dvo\u0159\u00e1k also has some high-ranking works that are particularly popular, still, even in these works just a few recognize how peculiar a composer he is. We, music fans take delight in humming the most beautiful melodies we heard in the concert and that frequently jingle in our heads for hours after. But if you have a closer look, you\u2019ll see that Dvo\u0159\u00e1k didn\u2019t get famous for his glorious melodies. Just rarely will you find such an effusive and beautiful melody in his works as in Tchaikovsky\u2019s. Almost everyone can sing a well-known melody from Tchaikovsky, but Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s themes are much shorter, much simpler. New World Symphony is certainly his most popular work, but I can hardly believe that even after listening to it several times will there be a lot of melodies (except the famous Indian song which reasoned the title New World) that get stuck in your ears and you can easily sing. The reason is that this is not the key message with Dvo\u0159\u00e1k. Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s music is made up of a lot of suddenly changing elements, contrapositions, flashes, while he\u2019s believed to be one of the most conservative composers of the Romantic era. He clings to traditions in all aspects; perhaps he\u2019s the one among the Romantics who dares the least to change the formal traditions [1]<\/a>. Let me show you some examples of this diversity so that you could also see how Dvo\u0159\u00e1k treats the musical themes and what the reason is behind so much liking his works which we hear as musically and emotionally easy to follow. Now we\u2019ll show you the leading theme from the relatively sonata-form first movement [2]<\/a> in Symphony No. 8 [3]<\/a>. The theme is played after a short introduction, but I\u2019ll come back to this later. The theme, as played on the flute, is awfully simple and very short.<\/p>\n

     <\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/span>1. Dvo\u0159\u00e1k: VIII. szimf\u00f3nia<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/span>