Eugene Zádor, 2015

Track Listing

Zádor: Festival Overture 10:10

Zádor: Variations on a Hungarian Folksong

1. Theme 0:29
   
2. Var. 1: Bagatelle 0:40
3. Var. 2: Burleske 4:12
4. Var. 3: Scherzo 2:30
5. Var. 4: Serenade 6:15
6. Var. 5: Scherzetto 0:50
7. Var. 6: Tempo di Foxtrot 2:11
   
8. Var. 7: Capriccio 1:51
9. Var. 8: Alla zingaresca – quasi Csárdás 3:49
10. Var. 9: Phantasie 4:27
11. Var. 10: Fugato – Stretta 2:49
    

Zádor: Dance Symphony

1. Allegro moderato 10:09
   
2. Andante cantabile 7:35
3. Allegro 5:25
4. Andantino, Rondo – molto vivo 7:17

Reviews

“… The Festival Overture of 1963 had its premiere under the baton of Zubin Mehta, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in 1964 during opening week of the Los Angeles Music Center. The piece is entirely fitting for the occasion: grand, fanfare drenched, with a martial yet quaint theme for its main body. The piece speaks with a lovely voice, that of a composer who can mix sound-worlds at will. Importantly, rigor is evident as well as approachability. One can hear the film music gestures, but there is so much more here. There is an open-air, Copland-inspired feel to the more expansive moments. The Variations on a Hungarian Folksong dates from 1919. The unimposing theme has a nice, pungent tang to its harmonization. Each variation is given a title (Bagatelle, Burleske, Tempo di Foxtrot, and so on), and each has a lovely, individual character… The Dance Symphony, Zador’s Third Symphony, was premiered by no less a figure than Knappertsbusch (in February 1937). Frank DeWald, the booklet’s annotator, is correct in that the influences of both Korngold and Richard Strauss are evident here; some of the scoring, and the thrusting, enthusiastically upward reaching themes in the first movement are particularly redolent of the latter… This is a terrific release, one that reminds us that Naxos’s explorations into the lesser-known repertoire can often yield rich rewards.”
—Colin Clarke