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Film and the Arts
Budapest Festival Orchestra Plays Mahler at Carnegie Hall
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 02 March 2026 14:21
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Fadi Kheir
At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Saturday, February 7th, I had the exceptional privilege of attending a magnificent concert presented by Carnegie Hall—the second of two on consecutive days and one of the best I have ever been to—featuring the extraordinary Budapest Festival Orchestra, under the inestimable direction of Iván Fischer, one of the world’s finest conductors. Also on the stage were a superb mezzo-soprano, Gerhild Romberger, and two marvelous choruses: the Trebles of Westminster Choir, directed by Donald Nally, and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, led by Elizabeth Núñez.
The event consisted of a performance of Gustav Mahler’s seldom played, monumental Symphony No. 3 in D Minor, which completed its final revision in 1906.
About the work, the composer explained that “each movement stands alone.” After going to its premiere in 1902, Arnold Schoenberg wrote to Mahler as follows:
I think I have experienced your symphony. I felt the struggle for illusions; I felt the pain of one disillusioned; I saw the forces of evil and good contending; I saw a man in a torment of emotion exerting himself to gain inner harmony. I sensed a human being, a drama, truth, the most ruthless truth!
Mahler stated that the piece “doesn’t keep to the traditional form in any way, but to me, ‘symphony’ means constructing a world with all the technical means at one’s disposal. The eternally new and changing content determines its own form.”
The original subtitles for the movements, which the composer later removed, were:
- A Summer Morning’s Dream: Introduction: Awakening of Pan, Summer enters, Procession of Bacchus
- What the flowers in the meadow tell me
- What the animals in the forest tell me
- What man tells me
- What the angels tell me
- What love tells me
But, Mahler also said, “I know that as long as I can sum up my experience in words, I can certainly not create music about it.” And further: “Because of its manifold variety, this work, in spite of its duration … is short, in fact, of the greatest concision.”
The extremely long and ambitious initial movement starts dramatically with a fanfare and many portentous measures of a sometimes more inchoate character; eventually, music of a much sunnier variety displaces the gloom, building to a climax followed by a more tentative sequence that ushers in an episode of greater agitation and urgency. Another series of fanfares inaugurates another interlude of uncertainty that precedes an affirmative, march-like section that finishes triumphantly. In Mahler’s 1896 comments on the symphony, he said about this movement that it “has almost ceased to be music; it is hardly anything but sounds of nature.”
The subsequent, exquisite minuet opens charmingly and much of it has a playful, usually gentle quality; it closes softly. The succeeding scherzando is ludic too as well as joyful—a distant, posthorn solo has a certain restlessness but is evocative of a more serene perspective that moves to the foreground before the movement concludes animatedly. Citing the 1896 remarks of the composer, Jack Sullivan, in his excellent notes on the program, describes “the coda of the scherzando” as “a sudden falling again of these ‘heavy shadows of inanimate nature’ before the ‘great leap upward into the more spiritual realm.’”
The radiant fourth movement is, according to the annotator, “a misterioso nocturne for contralto on the ‘Drunken Song’ from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra.” The jubilant, enchanting, choral movement that ensues—which, as Sullivan says, “omits strings entirely”—has transcendent moments; it is a setting of a text from the early 19th-century, Romantic anthology compiled by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which provides a general framework uniting Mahler’s first four symphonies and was a source of inspiration for many other compositions from the first phase of his career.
In 1896, Mahler said that in the adagio finale, “God can only be understood as love,” and that: “What was heavy and rigid at the beginning has, at the end, advanced to the highest state of consciousness; inarticulate sounds have become the most perfectly articulated speech.” The movement has an extended, hushed beginning that subtly transitions to music of greater emotional intensity that climaxes before again slowly ascending to a vision of heavenly fulfillment, ending with a grand apotheosis.
The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.
Broadway Play Review—Tracy Letts’ “Bug” with Carrie Coon
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 02 March 2026 02:50
- Written by Kevin Filipski
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| Carrie Coon in Bug (photo: Matthew Murphy) |
Budapest Festival Orchestra Performs Classics at Carnegie Hall
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 24 February 2026 15:30
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Chris Lee.
At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Friday, February 6th, I had the enormous pleasure to attend a terrific concert presented by Carnegie Hall—the first of two on consecutive days—featuring the exceptional Budapest Festival Orchestra, under the brilliant direction of Iván Fischer, one of the world’s greatest conductors.
The event started auspiciously with a sterling account of Arvo Pärt’s haunting Summa from 1977, about which the composer stated in 1994:
I have developed a highly formalized compositional system, which I have been using to write my music for 20 years. Summa is the most strict and enigmatic work in this series.
The superb virtuoso, Maxim Vengerov, then entered the stage for a fabulous performance of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s marvelous Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, from 1878. The initial Allegro moderato movement has a brief, slow introduction that precedes lyrical music of a strongly Romantic character that becomes more passionate as it develops, then builds first to an intense climax, before the elaborate cadenza, and then to a second one, before closing triumphantly. The ensuing Canzonetta, marked Andante, is song-like too but more subdued, while the Finale—with a tempo of Allegro vivacissimo—is propulsive and energetic—and joyful—even exhilarating, although with some quieter and more restrained moments, concluding forcefully. Enthusiastic applause elicited an excellent encore from the soloist: J. S. Bach’s Adagio from the Solo Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Minor.
The second half of the event was comparably strong, consisting of a magnificent realization of the outstanding 1877 Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73, by Johannes Brahms. The initial, Allegro non troppo movement opens rather gently but not without some suspense, while some of it has a graceful, pastoral quality and, as well, there is some emotionalism throughout; after an extraordinary, quasi-fugal section, it finishes surprisingly softly. The eminent critic (and philosopher of music) Eduard Hanslick wrote of the ensuing, “broad, singing” Adagio, that it is a movement “more conspicuous for the development of the themes than for the themes themselves”; it is melodious and somewhat affirmative on the whole but not without solemn, almost tragic undercurrents, and has an irenic conclusion.
The third movement—marked Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)—is lilting, even playful, with a cheerful, even exultant ethos, although with a serene ending. Hanslick referred to the “golden sincerity” of the Allegro con spirito finale, and described it as so “far a cry from the stormy finales of the modern school … Mozartean blood flows in its veins.” It is often exuberant but with contrasting passages; after a complex development, it closes jubilantly. After a standing ovation, several musicians in the ensemble played a charming encore: traditional Hungarian folk music from Kalotaszeg.
Tenor Juan Diego Flórez Performs at Carnegie Hall
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 24 February 2026 15:00
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Jennifer Taylor
At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Thursday, February 5th, I had the privilege to attend a splendid recital—presented by Carnegie Hall—featuring the superb Peruvian tenor, Juan Diego Flórez—he is one of the most appealing figures in the world of contemporary opera—along with pianist Vincenzo Calera.
The first half of the event focused on the bel canto repertory that is the singer’s specialty, opening with Gioachino Rossini’s “Le sylvain,” the ninth song from the third volume of his late collection—which he began composing in 1857–Péchés de vieillesse. There then followed four selections by Vincenzo Bellini, including three songs from his 1829 set, Sei Ariette, beginning with, first, “Malinconia, ninfa gentile,” which is from a text by the distinguished pre-Romantic poet, Ippolito Pindemonte, and second, “Vanne, o rosa fortunata,” set to verse by the 18th-century librettist, Pietro Metastasio. This preceded the 1834 song, “La ricordanza,” which later became famous when transformed into the aria “Qui la voce” from I puritani. Scalera then beautifully played a keyboard arrangement by Carl Czerny of “Almen se non poss’io” from the Sei Ariette. Flórez concluded the first half of the program with two selections by Gaetano Donizetti, beginning with another Metastasio setting, “Ah, rammenta, o bella Irene,” and ending with the recitative and aria from the opera Roberto Devereux: “Ed ancor la tremenda porta … Come uno spirito angelico.”
Despite the singer’s close association with the style of music of the first half of the evening, the second part was unexpectedly (and unaccountably) much stronger in effect, starting with three selections from Spanish zarzuelas. The first was “Bella amorada” composed by Reveriano Soutullo and Juan Vert from their 1928 El último romántico. Also excellent were two arias from the zarzuela type known as género chico: “Suena, guitarrico mío” from Agustín Pérez Soriano’s 1900 El guitarrico and “Aquí está quien lo tiene tó y no tiene ná” from José Serrano’s 1909 La alegría del batallón. Scalera then concluded this section by playing Mazurka glissando by the celebrated Cuban zarzuela composer, Ernesto Lecuona.
Also exquisite were two selections from the French Romantic repertory, beginning with “Ô Souverain, ô juge, ô père,” from Act III of Jules Massenet’s lesser-known, 1885 opera, Le Cid, based on the play by Pierre Corneille and succeeded by “Salut! demeure chaste et pure” from Charles Gounod’s enduring 1859 opera, Faust. Scalera closed this portion of the program by playing the Berceuse, here arranged for piano, from Benjamin Godard’s Jocelyn of 1887. The tenor ended the program proper thrillingly with “Che gelida manina” from Giacomo Puccini’s marvelous La bohème of 1896.
After a standing ovation, the tenor returned to perform an incredible series of encores, starting with Eduardo di Capua’s "I' te vurria vasà" and followed by a medley of songs with Spanish lyrics for which Flórez accompanied himself on the guitar, including "Bella enamorada,” “La flor de la canela, and “Fina estampa.” More familiar was the delightful 1954 song by Tomás Méndez, "Cucurrucucú paloma." He then sang "Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête! ... Pour mon âme" from Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, which is the aria that brought him stardom. After delivering "Be My Love" by Nicholas Brodszky which Mario Lanza sang in the1950 movie, Toast of New Orleans, he finished gloriously with the unforgettable "Una furtiva lagrima" from Donizetti’s L'elisir d'amore.
