Eugene Zádor - Piano Quintet; Accordion Concerto; etc. (Mariusz Smolij)

Information

Composer: Eugene Zádor

• Accordion Concerto
• Románc (arr. Mariusz Smolij)
• Suite for Brass Instruments
• Berceuse (arr. Mariusz Smolij)
• Hungarian Fantasy (arr. Mariusz Smolij)
• Piano Quintet (arr. Mariusz Smolij)

Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV

Mariusz Smolij, conductor

Date: 2024

Label: Naxos

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Review

Immediately upon hearing the introductory measures of Eugene Zádor’s Accordion Concerto at the start of this disc, a smile tugged at my face. How had I not heard any of his music previously? It was only upon receiving this disc that I learned it is the eighth in a Naxos series devoted to the composer.

Zádor was among those early 20th-century musical émigrés – like Daniele Amfitheatrof, Constantin Bakaleinikoff, and Erich Zeisl – who fled from dangers in Europe to the safety of Los Angeles, where they enriched the local musical culture. Zádor’s music is a self-assured citizen of the world that refuses affiliation with any group, artistic or otherwise. Instead, it eschews emotional and timbral extremes, in favor of adhering to a tradition it respects, but is never subservient to.

The Piano Quintet from 1933 (heard here in an arrangement for piano and string orchestra by Mariusz Smolij, this disc’s conductor) established early the basic parameters of Zádor’s art: concise thematic content, formal neatness, and clean textures, all spiced with unexpected syncopations and harmonic modulations. 

Its opening movement sets forth a first subject propelled by an iambic rhythm that segues into a lyrical second subject with a surprisingly popular tilt. That rhythm and impression are reinforced in the ensuing sultry “Tempo moderato”, suggestive of a lovers’ crepuscular final dance after a bacchic outing at a nightclub, redolent of summer heat and desire. A limpid melody played by the piano in octaves over string triplets opens the gentle intermezzo-like scherzo. The finale is an “Allegro molto” enlivened by offset rhythms and a brief fugato passage, before concluding with playful understatement.

Nearly thirty years later, Zádor composed the Suite for Brass Instruments. He dedicated it to Gustav Koslik, then the music director of Vienna’s Tonkünstler Orchestra. In its middle movement, a rising melody played by the trumpet, with French horns in imitation, convey the work’s essential preference for nobility over power. This comes through as well in the regal finale, although the brass players of the Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV punctuate its close with a splendid din.

The most recent work on this disc is the Accordion Concerto from 1972, composed for the long-lived virtuoso Anthony Galla-Rini, who toured with the work for the remainder of the decade. Zádor’s affinity for composing for the accordion had been recognized since at least 1955, when the California chapter of the Accordion Teachers Guild International commissioned him to compose an unrelated piece for the instrument.

In the concerto, the soloist immediately enters with a rising and falling lyrical wisp soon tripped by a stuttering figure with a side-slipping tail. Zádor then sub-divides these into separate components which he jostles through the movement’s development and right through to its sunny coda. Its middle movement is led by a melody whose initial rising five-note gesture uncannily anticipates, of all things, Uematsu Nobuo’s main theme from Final Fantasy VII. A short passage with accordion supported by string tremolos momentarily evokes Bartókian night music that swiftly transforms into a ghostly procession. Light and levity, highlighted by xylophone and snare drum, return in the “Rondo alla zingaresca” finale, which ends with a joyful dance.

The remaining three works are in a decidedly lighter vein. Of these, the Berceuse (presented here in an arrangement for solo violin and strings) is an especially lovable piece that would be a welcome swap for the “Meditation” from Massenet’s Thaïs on a recital program. Likewise, the Hungarian Fantasy, originally scored for violin and piano, is an unpretentious and fun twelve-minutes of zestful music that does not outwear its welcome.

Alert, engaged, and simply delightful throughout is the playing of the Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV conducted by Mariusz Smolij, as well as soloists Klaudiusz Baran, Richárd Rózsa, Dávid Pintér, and Anna Górecka. Informative liner notes by Frank K. DeWald rounds out this enticing release.

“Bach and Beethoven erected temples and churches on the heights”, Grieg famously declared. “I only wanted to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home.” Zádor could just as well have said the same of his own art. In our increasingly strident and crass world, his unique and elegant music offers listeners a comforting place of repose.

— Néstor Castiglione

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Eugene Zádor (5 November 1894 – 4 April 1977) was a Hungarian/American composer. Born in Bátaszék, Hungary, he studied at the Vienna Music Academy and in Leipzig with Max Reger. From 1921 he taught at the New Vienna Conservatory and later at the Budapest Academy of Music. After moving to America in 1939, Zádor composed (anonymously) music for a number of film scores, but regarded his movie work as merely supportive to other creative activities. Zádor wrote a number of operas and orchestral pieces in a late romantic style, and had a particular affinity for composing works based on Hungarian folk music.

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Mariusz Smolij, who was born in 1962 near Katowice, Poland, studied conducting in the United States and earned a doctoral degree from the Eastman School of Music. An accomplished violinist, he is a founding member of the Penderecki Quartet, with which he performed and recorded in Poland, Germany, France, Italy and the United States. As a conductor, Smolij has led over 130 orchestras in 28 countries on five continents, appearing in some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls. He is currently Music Director of the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra in Lafayette, Louisiana, and the Riverside Symphonia in New Jersey.

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