Before reviewing the new Swiss conductor's second concert in Cairo, Amal Choucri Catta outlines the history of opera in this part of the world Cairo Symphony Orchestra weekly concert, conductor Christoph Mueller, piano soloist , Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 18 September Maestro Christoph Mueller, recently appointed director and principal conductor of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, does not seem sufficiently concerned about the response of his Cairo audiences to his new work. Last Saturday, at the start of his second concert, he once again offered the handful of listeners gathered in the main hall a verbal explanation of his chosen programme, filling them in on the concepts backing up the composers' work. Since the same details were available in the concert programme, of which every member of the audience had a copy, the speech, reminiscent of a lecture in music, seemed somewhat superfluous. On the last occasion -- Mueller's first ever concert in Cairo -- the audience saw the speech as an attempt on his part to establish some initial contact with his listeners. The second time round, however, many perceived it as an affront. The tendency to lecture his audience is but one aspect of Mueller's seeming failure to realise that his Egyptian audience has been listening to symphonic music regularly for over 150 years. Even prior to the foundation of Cairo's first opera house -- the first symphony orchestra was to emerge shortly afterwards, succeeding the Cairo Radio Orchestra -- Egyptian listeners were already well acquainted with symphonic music. Composers like Georges Bizet, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Hans von Buelow, Giacomo Puccini, Camille Saint-Saens, Piestro Mascagni and many others had, as a result, a strong connection with Egyptian opera and its symphonists. And the careers of singers like Enrica Caruso started on the stage of that first opera house, which was to welcome such international stars as Benjamino Bigli, Aureliano Pertile, Gino Becchi, Maria Caniglia, Paul Hindemith, Bela Bartok, Maria Rotta and Edward Strauss, among others. The actual Cairo Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1959, and even after the old opera house burned down on 28 October 1971, concerts and musical activities were transferred to the old Gumhouriya Theatre, with symphonic concerts taking place on Fridays under the baton of the late Youssef El-Sissi, or else the occasional local or foreign guest conductor. With the inauguration of the New Cairo Opera House on 10 October 1988, the Cairo Symphony Orchestra underwent several changes before it was finally placed in the very capable hands of its director, Ahmed El-Saedi, in 1990. It therefore goes without saying that local audiences are quite capable of appreciating a concert without having to go through a lecture by the conductor. And as to the why and the wherefore of the maestro's choice, they are of no major significance, the importance lying in the quality of the performance and not in the reasons for the selection. Saturday night's concert started with Franz Liszt's symphonic poem Les Preludes, inspired by four poems by Frenchman Joseph Autran and originally intended as an introduction to "les quatre éléments", a choral work inspired by Alphonse de Lamartine's Nouvelles meditations poetiques. The music starts off with some pianissimo interspersed with a violin pizzicato and a delicious dialogue between strings and woodwinds. The sound gradually swells into an andante maestoso, edging into an allegretto pastorale before turning into a vehement allegretto marziale ; more andante maestoso precedes the majestic finale. In an explanatory preface to his Preludes, Liszt wonders if our lives are "not more than a series of preludes to that unknown song of which Death intones the first solemn note". The work is a philosophical description of human existence, with its brief moments of love, hope and happiness, and its seemingly endless sorrow and suffering. Despite colourful, splendidly conceived themes, the orchestra did not respond well to Mueller. The same could be said of the next work on programme: Liszt's Second Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A- major, with soloist at the keys. This young virtuoso won a Fullbright Scholarship that took him to Washington DC, and a second scholarship from Converse College in South Carolina, USA, where he resides to this day. Aged 23, Farouk has successfully toured France, Germany and the Czech Republic, recently presenting four concerts in Saint Petersburg that were loudly applauded by both audiences and critics. Drawing on the expressive complexity and subtlety of the work, Farouk's interpretation of the concerto was fascinating. Divided into three main parts, the work is a magnificent creation with sparkling piano sequences and remarkable transitions from one theme into the other, reminiscent of the ever victorious hero who triumphantly lands on each newly conquered shore. A powerful realisation evidencing spellbinding pianistic ingenuity. As a pianist, Liszt was among the greatest: his compositions occupy a remarkable place in the hearts and minds of music lovers, due to both their intrinsic power and the influence they have exerted on subsequent generations of composers. In his symphonic poems, he developed a new art form, and he was to remain a romantic enigma, a genius with a touch of the charlatan, and a virtuoso, generous to colleagues and the young. Born in Hungary in 1811, Liszt was a child prodigy, giving his first piano recital at the age of nine. He studied music in Vienna, played in Paris and London, where he was received by King George IV. A friend of Berlioz, Chopin and other celebrities, his fame as a pianist soon spread. He lived with Countess Marie d'Agoult: of their three children, Cosima become the wife of Buelow, and then of Wagner. Until 1847 he travelled widely, notably to Russia, his mistress having become Princess Carolyn Sayn- Wittgenstein. In 1865 he took minor orders, becoming the "Abbé Liszt", though his enormous adventures were still the talk of Europe. In the last five years of his life he concentrated on teaching, entering a new and important compositional phase of which his harmonic innovations were a significant feature. In 1886 he made a jubilee-tour to mark his 75th birthday, revisiting Paris and London. That same year, he died in Bayreuth. Despite his powerful, captivating performance, Farouk at times was visibly ill at ease as he sat on a squeaking chair to play with a doleful orchestra. But he managed to overcome these difficulties. Arthur Honegger, whose work supplied the next item on the programme, is a Swiss composer, born in Le Havre in 1892. In 1921 his Oratorio Le roi David won him world fame, though this was eclipsed in 1924 by his representation of a locomotive in Pacific 231. From these works he moved to a neo-romantic style with baroque overtones resulting from his admiration of Johann Sebastian Bach. His music remained tonal. It often has a strong emotional impact, as in his dramatic Oratorio, based on a Claudel mystery play, Jeanne d'Arc au bucher. His symphonies were championed by the then famous conductor Charles Munch. Honegger lived a large part of his life in Paris, visited the USA several times and, despite his ill health, taught, in his last years at Paris's Ecole Normale. He died in Paris in 1955. Among his numerous works, many are inspired by the holy scriptures, like his third symphony, Liturgique, which occupied the second half of the Saturday concert. It starts with "Dies Irae", evoking the Last Judgement, suggesting death and destruction and the advent of the Messianic Riders of the Apocalypse. The second movement, "De profundis clamavi", is taken from the 130th Psalm: "out of the depth have I cried". It bears a message of hope, of faith and tolerance, which leads to the third movement, "Dona nobis pacem", an exquisite prayer for peace, with cello, solo violin and a sustained flute quietly disappearing in a moving silence. The composition is one of power, beauty and subtlety, though, after Farouk's stunning presence, the solo violin ended up being rather disappointing: the player never got the last tone right, which was, unfortunately, the most important. In its present sorrowful state, the orchestra was clearly unprepared for a composition of such significance, and as well as developing an awareness of the history of classical music in Egypt, Mueller is advised to stick to simpler compositions until the conditions of his orchestra have improved.
