The dog days of summer

I named my dog Canicula because I thought it sounded pretty tough. Sort of a combination of the Latin canis - dog - and Caligula, the cruel Roman emperor.

If you follow the Hungarian weather reports these days, you`ll hear the word kánikula a lot. It`s Hungarian for heat wave. It comes from Canicula, an alternate name for Sirius, the Dog Star.

It`s when Sirius/Canicula the Dog Star rises during those unbearably hot summer nights that we have the Dog Days of summer. Sultry, oppressive, mind-crushing.

My dog Canicula doesn`t like the Dog Days of summer. She likes comfort. While I sit upstairs at my computer in the 34şC (93şF) heat, writing this article, Canicula is lying on her mattress in the air-conditioned living room downstairs. Lucky dog.

During a kánikula, you don`t exactly want to be sitting indoors. Not in front of your computer, and certainly not in the Academy of Music. You want to be outside, a fan in one hand, an ice-cold gin and tonic in the other. And beautiful music in your ears.

There is a solution: an outdoor concert. An outdoor concert in City Park, nonetheless. And what are they playing? The Four Seasons, of course, including the apropos Summer concerto.

On Monday, July 30 the Hungarian Virtuoso Chamber Orchestra will play Vivaldi`s most popular composition, that set of four violin concertos that never goes out of fashion and always refreshes, no matter what the season.

Outdoor stage

The violin soloist will be Miklós Szenthelyi, the ensemble`s founder and professor of violin at the Academy of Music. In addition, the orchestra will perform another well-known and popular work, Tchaikovsky`s Serenade for Strings in C major. The concert will be given on the outdoor stage of the Vajdahunyad Castle in City Park, just behind Heroes` Square, at 8:30pm, just as Sirius/Canicula the Dog Star is beginning to rise.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), the Red Priest, (red hair, that is, not a Red) was the most astounding violin virtuoso of his day, and wrote more than 230 violin concertos to show off his technical prowess.

Among them, the group called The Four Seasons (c.1725) holds a special place for its ingenuity in describing nature and the activities of people appropriate to the different seasons of the year.

The second concerto is Summer. It begins by describing a canicula, that dead heat of summer at midday in southern Europe, when your brains begin to frazzle. The air is motionless, the mood is hopeless. Your best bet: take a siesta under a tree and wait for the heat wave to pass. Suddenly, the solo violin bursts out into agitated motion, only to be intensified by the orchestra. Birds squawk out their scrawny, awkward calls. And blazing, sweltering storm winds rip through the summer sky. Vivaldi captures it all vividly.

If this only makes you feel hotter still, just remember that Winter is on its way. Maybe its freezing blasts of cold wind will chill you out.

It may seem a far cry from Italian Baroque nature painting to the Russian Romanticism of Tchaikovsky, but the Serenade for Strings, too, is a charming work, and one of his most beautiful and elegant.

It is full of the soaring melodies that characterize Tchaikovsky`s very personal style, and the waltz movement certainly ranks with his other works in swinging time. The four-movement serenade is lighter and more entertaining than his symphonies, perfect for a summer evening outdoors.



Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

Hungarian Virtuoso Chamber Orchestra, Szenthelyi

Monday, July 30, 8:30pm (rain date: July 31)

Vajdahunyad Castle, City Park

Kevin Shopland
www.budapestsun.com - Wednesday, July 25, 2007