Zador: Five Contrasts, Children's Symphony

The performances on this disc are excellent. The Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV plays with great spirt and finesse under Mariusz Smolij. Zádor was, as you might expect, a superb orchestrator. He did it for a living, after all, and by this I don’t mean he resorted to a gratuitous excess of color standing in for musical inspiration, but rather a knack for finding the right sound to convey the musical message. These players seem to appreciate this aspect of the music; the playing has soul, however subjective that may sound, while the engineering is excellent. Get to know this music; it’s worth your time. --ClassicsToday.com

Eugene Zádor was a remarkable colourist and orchestrator whose Hollywood film work was extensive. He described himself as a ‘middle of the road extremist’. The Aria and Allegro is a beautifully crafted work brimming with rhythmic energy. Five Contrasts for Orchestra demonstrates his rich sound world at its most vibrant; film noir jostling with a bigbooted country dance. The lighter A Children’s Symphony is one of his most popular pieces – communicative, witty, accessible. We also hear two small and captivating evocations of his native Hungary.

None of these pieces has been recorded before. One of Zádor’s major works, Christopher Columbus, is on Cambria coupled with the Studies for orchestra. Zádor’s music is hugely approachable, and exciting, as befits a Hollywood orchestrator. He was great friends with Miklós Rózsa and shares that communicative spirit and sense of colour (in fact he was Rózsa’s own orchestrator).