Photo by Jennifer Taylor

 

A superb season at Carnegie Hall continued magnificently with two concerts on consecutive evenings—beginning on Friday, April 5th—given by the superlative musicians of the Budapest Festival Orchestra—one of the finest contemporary ensembles—under the brilliant direction of Iván Fischer, one of the greatest working conductors.

 

The first program, devoted to music by Béla Bartók, opened exhilaratingly with a mesmerizing account of the extraordinary Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin, one of three works the composer wrote for the stage. The conductor then announced that the next portion of the evening would pay tribute to Bartók’s contributions to music education, involving pieces that he composed for students to play. He invited a high school group from eastern Hungary, the exquisite Cantemus Choir, with the lovely girls in traditional dress, to perform a cappella selections from Twenty-Seven Two- and Three-Part Choruses, directed by Dénes Szabó. After this, Fischer led the orchestra—“pretending” to be a high school ensemble—in support of the singers in the five choruses for which Bartók later provided accompaniment in 1937, as well as the two arrangements for small orchestra he completed in 1942. It was especially exciting to have a chance to hear this glorious music live given that it presents a less familiar dimension of the composer’s repertoire—here traditional folk music is expressed in an idiom influenced by Italian Renaissance polyphony.

 

The second half of the program featured a thrilling rendition of the late masterpiece, the Concerto for Orchestra, in probably the best version I have yet heard in the concert hall. The first movement was effectively unsettling while the second was abundant in wit, and the Elegia was haunted if enigmatic. The ingenious Intermezzo was thoroughly bewitching while the delirious finale was notable for its unusually accelerated tempo. An ovation of unbridled enthusiasm was rewarded with an enjoyable encore, a traditional folk tune called “Banchida”, a forecast of the following evening’s concert, the first half of which was devoted to Bartók’s ethnomusicological inspirations.

 

That program opened with three instrumentalists—István Kádár on violin, András Szabó on viola, and Zsolt Fejérvári on bass—performing the music that served as the basis for Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances in a form that may have been similar to how the composer originally encountered it. The entire ensemble then enchantingly played Bartók’s beautifully scored version.

 

The same trio as before then accompanied the celebrated Hungarian folksinger Márta Sebestyén as she performed the songs that the composer orchestrated for his gorgeous Hungarian Peasant Songs, which the whole ensemble then executed ravishingly. Fischer and the programmers are again to be applauded for affording us the opportunity to appreciate these works in a live presentation, as they are seldom heard in the concert hall. Sebestyén then returned to the stage to perform an encore, supported by the trio of instrumentalists.

 

The concert concluded arrestingly with a powerful realization of Bartók’s mysterious operatic masterwork, Bluebeard’s Castle, featuring two outstanding singers: mezzo-soprano Ildikó Komlósi and basso Krisztián Cser. I look forward to the next local appearance of these marvelous artists.

Blu-rays of the Week

The Mule 

In Clint Eastwood’s most entertaining film in years, the octogenarian writer-director plays Earl Stone, a retiree with money problems who starts transporting drugs across state lines for a Chicago-based criminal cartel as a way to make some easy money.

 

 

 

 

Several of Eastwood’s recent films (Gran Torino, American Sniper, 15:17 to Paris) have been borderline jingoistic and crude, but there’s a bluntness to The Mule’s true story that’s refreshing; it also helps that good actors—Dianne Wiest, Bradley Cooper, Eastwood’s daughter Alison—take the onus off Clint in the lead, although he acquits himself charmingly. The hi-def transfer is excellent; extras are a music video and on-set featurette.

 

The Great Buster—A Celebration 

(Cohen Media)

Buster Keaton was one of our great screen comedians, and Peter Bogdanovich has created a decent overview of his life and career—including voluminous clips from many of his indelible films—but unfortunately places himself front and center as well.

 

 

 

 

He also peppers the film with interviews of people who have little of interest to say about Keaton (Cybill Shepherd, Bill Hader, Johnny Knoxville) and the self-indulgence makes this less than ideal: even the structure, first strictly chronological then backtracking to focus on his 1920s silent classics, is also wonky. There’s a great hi-def transfer; lone extra is a Bogdanovich Q&A.

 

 

 

 

 

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase 

(Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own.)

In this guileless reboot of the teenage sleuth’s adventures, spunky Sophia Lillis plays Nancy, who investigates a curious case of a haunted house involving a classmate’s grandmother (Linda Lavin) and also involves herself with her father’s dealings with some unsavory types. It’s only 90 minutes, which helps, as does the energetic cast.

 

 

 

Whether we see any sequels out of this attempt to revive a franchise remains a question mark. There’s a crisp and clean hi-def transfer.

 

DVD of the Week

Jupiter’s Moon 

(Distrib US/Icarus)

After his stunning White God—featuring dozens of canines outacting the humans in a disturbingly gripping post-apocalyptic drama—Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó returns with a fantasia about a Syrian refugee who is shot after crossing the border into Hungary, and who begins to levitate, a condition a dissembling doctor tries to use to his own advantage with ultimately fatal results.

 

 

 

Mundruczó is unafraid to tackle bizarre but compelling subject matter to show the corrosive effects of xenophobia and fear, and even if there’s much too much, the dazzling effects and camerawork and Mundruczó’s keen eye for the truly weird make this a fascinating watch.

 

 

 

 

 

CDs of the Week

Lutosławski/Dutilleux—Cello Concertos 

Salonen—Cello Concerto 

(Sony Classical)

Two of the seminal cello concertos of the late 20th century on one recording, and a world premiere by a prominent 21st century composer on another: I guess I can’t complain about music labels not taking chances in 2019. Johannes Moser thrillingly plays touchstones of the modern repertoire, Witold Lutosławski’s and