The Leo Weiner Album - Budapest Chamber Symphony / Sebok-Starker-Varga / Budapest Music Center Records ‎2x Audio CD 1999 / BMC CD 018

UPC 731406832321

The collection and publication of Weiner's works is at once an obeisance to one of the most prominent personalities of the great generation which counted Bartók, Dohnányi, Kodály and Zathurecky among its representatives - and is at the same time a rediscovery. The album is a selection of the best of his oeuvre; three of his most significant pieces were recorded for the first time. The recording owes its authenticity and historical value to the fact that Weiner's compositions are rendered by his world-famous students - György Sebők: piano, János Starker: violoncello and Tibor Varga: conductor.

Performers
CD 1

János Starker - violoncello (4)
Melinda Felletár - harp (4)
György Sebők - piano (5-6)

Budapest Chamber Symphony
(»The Weiner–Szász Orchestra«) (1-7)
Roman Osetchinsky, leader
Conducted by Tibor Varga (1-7)


CD 2

Antal Szalai - violin (1-4)

Budapest Chamber Symphony (1-4)
Roman Osetchinsky, leader
Conducted by Zsolt Hamar (1-4)
Production notes:
Recorded at the Phoenix Studio, Hungary
Recording producer: Ibolya Tóth
Balance engineer: János Bohus
Digital editing: Veronika Vincze, Mária Falvay
Design: ArtHiTech

Produced by László Gőz

The recording was sponsored by the National Cultural Fund of Hungary and the Weiner Foundation of Hungary

"The two main concepts of art are beauty and lucidity."

Leó Weiner

Leó Weiner (1885-1960) was an outstanding composer and music teacher active in the first half of the 20th century. Although he was a contemporary of Bartók and Kodály, his artistic attitude and style were not influenced by them. He relied on 19th century European music traditions and tonality, and refused to follow the new trends of his century.
Weiner was admitted to the F. Liszt Academy of Music without substantial previous music studies, but did very well owing to his seriousness and thorough study of the scores. János Koessler, his professor of composition, regarded him so high, that upon his recommendation, one year after graduation, Weiner was given a chair by the Academy, which he held for 50 years, doing an excellent job.
The long list of Leó Weiner's students - then friends - includes some of the greatest names in the music world: Géza Anda, Antal Doráti, Péter Frankl, Dénes Koromzay, György Pauk, Ödön Pártos, Miklós Rózsa, György Sebők, Sir Georg Solti, János Starker, Tibor Varga, Sándor Végh...
They kept alive the achievements of his chamber music teaching and passed them on to the new generations of musicians all over the world. Hundreds of instrumental soloists, conductors and orchestral musicians have proved the excellency of Weiner's curriculum and methodology.
The fact that Weiner's works are interpreted by his former students: György Sebők (piano), János Starker (violoncello), Tibor Varga (conductor), and the orchestral heir to his musical legacy: the Budapest Chamber Symphony makes these recordings authentic and of historic value.
The most successful period of Weiner's creative career falls on the first decades of the 20th century. His Serenade (1906) and Carnival (1907) were acclaimed in Hungary and abroad alike. As Antal Molnár, a Hungarian musicologist of the time, put it: "in those days everyone was convinced that Weiner was a genius of the first rank". His cometlike appearance was due to the early maturity of Weiner's creative powers, his sense of form and proportion, and his ability to blend the fresh sound of the new century with the balancedness of the old one into a homogeneous, unique language.
Sensitive, French-like harmonies gleamed in his compositions, bringing new colour to Hungarian music that followed German patterns at that time. No wonder Weiner was ranked equal to Bartók, and Kodály.


CD 1

This CD - with its great variety of genres - is a selection of Weiner's most personal and characteristic compositions.
Pastorale, phantaisie et fugue is Weiner's last neo-classical - in new terminology: eclectic - work, composed in 1938. Interestingly, it has two versions: one for string orchestra, one for string quartet. Though Weiner worked on them simultaneously, making it op.23 he considered the string orchestra version as first, and registered the other one as String Quartet no.3, op.26.
This is Weiner's most homogeneous and harmonic work, including his Divertimenti. By naming the three movements Pastoral, Fantasy and Fugue his neo-classicism has a predominantly Baroque character. The Pastorale (Allegro amabile) with its flowing 6/8 melodic line reminds us of the Lieds Shubert's Wanderers sing, and the similarity is more striking, because from behind it joyous tone one hears the sound of a tragic future. Its idyll - in 1938, on the verge of WW2 - is a shocking gesture from Weiner, and can be interpreted only as his escape to the soothing self-oblivion of music. The Phantaisie (Poco adagio, quasi andante) is a flowing continuation to the singing melodiousness of the first movement. The composer in some places applies harmonies resembling Debussy, in others the pentatony of Hungarian folk music. The movement demonstrates the strength of Weiner's lyricism, and recalls his voice of youth. Not counting his transcriptions of earlier works, we can hear him using it for the last time as WW2 silenced it forever. The Fugue's brilliant theme, pulsating in quavers, is the only element resembling Weiner's Hungarian style. The latest reasarch has established it is a Hungarian folk tune played on bagpipe, the bouncing notes of the second part reveal its origin. The Fugue with its masterly proportions and sweeping energy is a most appropriate unifying and closing element of the three-pice music structure.
The Romance for cello, harp and string orchestra is one of Weiner's most lyrical compositions. He rewrote it in 1949 in respect for the musical values of the original cello and piano version composed some 30 years earlier. As usually Weiner considered it a separate work and gave it
a new number: op.29. The Romance is a shining example of Weiner's lyricism at its best: its melodies developing in circular motion, modal harmonization and pathetic treatment of pentatony are in perfect unity in the original version, but in the new one with the orchestral accompaniment this quality is even more enhanced.
The Concertino for piano and orchestra is his next composition that followed the first version of the Romance, op.14 and is Weiner's first concerto. It was finished in 1923, had its premiére in 1926 - with Ernst von Dohnányi playing the solo part and István Kerner conducting the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra - and became his most popular piece. In the 30s and 40s it went around the world and was interpreted by prominent musicians. As Weiner's most characteristic work, it is still often performed.
In one of his letters he describes the Concertino as follows: "pianistically it is not romantic (in the loud, multi-chord Liszt-Tchaikovsky-Rachmaninov sense of the word) but neo-classic: lined and contoured (resembling Mozart and the early Beethoven)". It consists of two parts. The first movement - like his Pastorale mentioned above - is marked Allegro amabile and calls for a dolce melody-shaping. The piano and the orchestra converse in a relaxed manner, interrupted by cadence-like sections. The contrasting Vivace is based on a motoric, eighth-motion theme, and builds up to a virtuoso and effective Rondo-Finale in the form so typical of Weiner.
The Carnival for small orchestra - composed in 1907 and second in the row of orchestral works - Weiner later did not withdraw, is his first programme music. In contrast to the historic themes fashionable that time, he pictures an occasional gathering of ordinary people, with its changes in mood and bizarre pettyness. Its subtitle, Humoresque is the best word to describe Weiner's work. One of his enthusiastic contemporaries compared Weiner's subtle humour to that of Mozart - true: Weiner's Carnival full of brilliant ideas, and natural musical charm is not without prominent precedent.


Budapest Chamber Symphony

It is striking to hear music performed with discipline, fidelity to the score and yet full of joie de jeu. Many – including prof. Sándor Végh of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, who was of the same opinion – find the Budapest Chamber Symphony excels in just that. The orchestra was created in 1992 by Judit Réger-Szász with the aim of preserving and carrying on the finest Hungarian tradition in performing chamber music. This tradition is based on the legacy of Leó Weiner (1885–1960) – a composer and colleague of Bartók, Dohnányi, Kodály and Zathurecky at the F. Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest – and József Szász, a student of Weiner, founder and first violinist of the famous Weiner String Quartet. The Budapest Chamber Symphony regularly performs as a string orchestra and in various chamber formations as well. Its repertoire ranges from the Baroque to the 20th century. Programming usually combines standard pieces with new or rarely heard works. The BCS, supported and operated by the Weiner-Szász Foundation, attracts business sponsorship from the Samsung (main sponsor), Hungarian Electricity Works, Novacom and Hunviron companies (sponsors). Their list of guest artists includes, among others, such well-known names as Isabelle Faust, Lóránd Fenyves, Péter Frankl, Kim Kashkashian, Cyprien Katsaris, András Keller, Zoltán Kocsis, Alexander Lonquich, György Pauk, Miklós Perényi, Viktor Pikaizen, Katalin Pitti, László Polgár, Zoltán Rácz, Andrea Rost, György Sebôk, János Starker, Tibor Varga, Dénes Várjon, Tamás Vásáry, Sándor Végh... The orchestra works under the direction of an artistic board, whose members are: Mathis Dulack (Netherlands) – principal conductor, Imre Pusker – conductor, Roman Osetchinsky – leader, Judit Réger-Szász – founding president, Mihály Szilágyi – cultural manager.

János Starker, violoncellist (b. 1924 in Hungary) has been working in the USA since 1948. He started as a solo cellist of three orchestras, among them the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the music directorship of Fritz Reiner. His career as soloist started in 1958 when he recorded the Bach Solo Suites for Mercury. From the same year on János Starker has been teaching at Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington.
His discography contains more than 150 items. In 1990 jános Starker was given the Grammy-award for his interpretation of the works by the cellist-composer Dávid Popper. He recorded R. Strauss’s Don Quixote with the Bavarian Radio Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin, Concertos by Bartók and Dvorak with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Slatkin, Schumann and Hindemith with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russel Davies. On three other records he interpretes sonatas.
A new CD with Rudolf Buchbinder came out to celebrate his 70th birthday.

György Sebők, pianist (b. 1922 in Hungary) studied composition with Kodály and chamber music with Weiner at the F. Liszt Academy of Music. From 1949 he taught piano at the Bartók Conservatory of Budapest. In 1950 he won the International Piano Competition in Berlin and received the Liszt-award in Budapest. He moved to Paris in 1957 and continued his career there. As as piano soloist he toured the whole world. His trio with János Starker and Arthur Grumiaux, so famous in the 50s and the 60s, is still legendary. Sebők made his first recording for Erato in 1957 and it was followed by more than forty. From 1962 on he has been teaching music at Indiana University in Bloomington, US. He hold master classes all over the world, established the “Festival der Zukunft” a yearly concerts & lectures event in Ernen, Switzerland. György Sebők was given Hungary’s Cross of Distinction in 1993, his name appeared on the list of prominencies of the USA, in 1995 he was made honorary citizen of Ernen, received the Swiss Pro Cultura-award from the Canton of Wallis Canton in 1995, and the “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” from the French Minister of Education in 1996.