László Vidovszky retrospective recital/1

‘All the world’s a stage,’ claims Jacques, indisputably, in Act II of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. As music is also part of our world, we can say, in agreement with Shakespeare, that all the music’s a stage as well - not only operas, operettas and musicals, but all kinds of music. The festival program’s three cult classics by Kossuth Prize recipient VIDOVSZKY László present the theatrical nature of music from different perspectives. His 1975 piano piece, Schroeder halála (Schroeder’s death), whose title evoke the Beethoven-fanatic character from the Peanuts cartoons, also has a strong theatrical effect. The pianist plays ascending and descending scales in the full ambitus of the piano, while three preparators (in this case, three young composers) are standing next to him, constantly modifying the sound by placing various objects among the strings. Eventually, they mute the piano completely, so that the pianist can continue with the scales on a silent instrument.