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Josef Maria Horvath Private recording. Duration: 17:26 In this splendid recording of one great musical moment, Josef Maria Horvath brings us into a sonic as well as emotional and philosophical realm of purest attention and somber wit. At this point in time, Horvath had achieved one of his clearest and most transparent scores, in a piece of music that can only be compared to the workings of the giants of the trade; to Dmitri Shostakovich or Karl-Birger Blomdahl, or Allan Pettersson or, indeed, Mieczyslaw Vainberg. This kind of music; chamber ensemble music with a cinematic execution, may seem outdated when 2007 is about to end and 2008 shimmers at the futuristic horizon – but taken for what it is; a child of the times in the mid-fifties, reflecting the dramatic and – I dare say - unbelievable decades that preceded those years, it comes out a winner: a solid expression of the grayscale circumstances in crumbling cities, suffering under the howling madness of whole populations at the brink, and of the unyielding strength of the human spirit, despite massive death and torture and the apparent divine indifference. Yes, that flickering flame in the ruins gets it’s wildfire expression in Horvath’s Passacaglia. The beauty of this music must have been molded by meager and ascetic circumstances; by spiritual experiences that peel off everything trivial, and raises that which we in our commodity-ridden societies may consider trivial to a level of utmost importance, such as a kind glance, a shy smile or a friendly chat. Such is life, when justly valued. This comes across in Horvath’s Passacaglia, loud and clear, in a forest of strings that talk to the soul, just like the Scandinavian coniferous woods do, to any lone wanderer, as night falls and the wind is soughing in the trees. The music dances forth in wide motions and tight formations, massive, yet meek and humble; a Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa of chamber compositions; soft-spoken but stubborn, gentle but forceful… and stylistically moving towards perfection. Sometimes Horvath dances through his score in melancholy, self-destructive stanzas a la Tchaikovsky in the last movement of Symphony No. 6; Pathetique - in long, generous skate figures across the Petersburg ice of loneliness… and later he storms through maelstroms of anxiety in Shostakovich chamber groves swaying in emotional storms of tight-knit string structures. Yet other places in Passacaglia give the impression of rural harvest feasts; light couple dances under the foliage, sun seeping through in glimpses; tables spread with glasses of fruit drinks; everybody wearing clean, colorful clothes. Or you could experience it as a fresh spring breeze carrying the happy smell of scrubbed rag-mats! Horvath manages, in Passacaglia, to bring the attentive listener through numerous sceneries of human life of the 20th century, the Central European way, with a flavor of Eastern Europe and Russia as well. Passacaglia comes in strong emotions dressed in brilliant chamber outfits. It reveals more and more of its intricate content the more you listen. Marvelous! |
