Lajtha: Orchestral Works Vol 5

Description

Laszlo Lajtha(1892 -1963)OrchestralWorks Vol. 5 Symphony No.4 \TheSpring, Op. 52 (1951)Suite II, Op.38 (1943) Symphony No.3,Op. 45 (1948)  If there existed atop-list of Lajtha works, the Fourth Symphony would certainly besomewhere in the vanguard, as it captivates the listener's heart at the firsthearing. Although the time of composition, the early 1950s was one of thedarkest periods in Hungarian history and Lajtha himself, deprived of anyleading position and his passport, was neglected, insecure and weighed downunder anxieties, this work is full of joi de vivre, bliss, wit, charm. Here,art and music offered an escape for the composer from unfortunate reality.  Like most Lajthasymphonies, Symphony No.4 also has three movements, two fast ones, Allegromolto and Vivace, flanking an Allegretto middle movementwhich, despite its brooding, pensive mood, has a subtle dance-like pulse. Thehighly inventive musical material contains many Hungarian or quasi- Hungariantunes, the orchestration is airy and transparent, another proof of Lajtha'sexceptional skills at instrumentation resting on the noblest Europeantraditions. Lajtha is most frequently epitomized as the combiner of Hungarianfolk-music and European, first of all Latinate, art music at the highest level.This statement, of course, fails to characterize many of his works but holdstrue of the Fourth Symphony. The finest example to prove this is theclosing lyrical section of the first movement with the violin solo. Thesubtitle Spring obviously best fits the last movement. The last movementis an uninterrupted, sweeping round-dance brimming with the joy of life intypica16/8 metre. What is more, Lajtha built a sort of stretta or gradedacceleration into the movement, so towards the end a climactic dance scene withall the reeling and spinning is evoked. It is a peculiarity of constructionthat the opening and closing movements are also thematically related.  It is illuminatingto know that the Communist government, guided by Soviet ideas, received themasterfully written composition, scintillating with wit, most unfavourably.Composer Ferenc Szabo declared at the end of the First Hungarian Music Week in1951 of Lajtha's works: "One of the chamber music programmes of the MusicWeek also included the fresh and lively seventh string Quartet witha Hungarian tone, which could be welcomed as a decisive turn in the oeuvre ofLajtha towards Hungarian folk-music and realism, as a serious step towards thedenunciation of West European cosmopolitanism and formalism. -His Fourthsymphony, however, seems to continue without scruples the undesirable formof composition in an extremely subjective spirit, which it was hoped had been completelybanished from Lajtha's valuable and significant creative art."  The antithesis tothe Spring symphony is declaration of life and happiness is the seventhsymphony, desperate in tone, originally subtitled Autumn, commemoratingthe 1956 revolution. It was composed in 1957.  Li