Captivating works by romantic pianist-composers are performed by the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of the Day of the Hungarian Culture on 22 January. As we have come to expect from the evenings of the Discoveries series, one of the leading Hungarian symphony orchestras will host outstanding young musicians, and we can get to know them now, with the anticipation and excitement of a first meeting. It is also part of the tradition that the programme includes a rarely-heard masterpiece.
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The rarely-heard masterpiece will be Ernő Dohnányi’s 1909 Suite in F-sharp minor, which Bartók described in one of his writings as music „betraying a fine craftsmanship and a wonderful sense of proportion”. Throughout this great work, Dohnányi retains his characteristic elegance, conjuring magical timbres from the orchestra’s palette; all four movements are gems.
The first echoes a motif from Erkel’s Overture to László Hunyadi, but the third is also truly special, in which the composer evokes the typical instrument of the Kuruc period, the tárogató, on modern instruments, with a nostalgic tone.
The first song of the programme is perhaps the most romantic concerto of all time: Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor. Its melodies have also had a wonderful career in the charts: Frank Sinatra wrote a song of some of its bars in 1945, but even more successful was Céline Dion, who reworked a section of the second movement as a heartfelt ballad (warming up a 1975 hit).
The miraculous composition by Sergei Rachmaninov, who was born 150 years ago and died 80 years ago, will be performed by Anton Gerzenberg, who burst onto the international music scene as the winner of the Géza Anda Piano Competition in Zurich in 2021, and who will perform all of György Ligeti’s piano works in a concert tour of Austria and Germany this season to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth.
Török Levente – forrás: Müpa magazin
Between the two works, one of Ferenc Liszt’s mythological symphonic poems, Prometheus, will be performed. The musical composition is inspired by the composer’s artistic vocation and messianic sense of mission. The essence of the overture, originally written for the play, is expressed in the preface to the score: „Suffering and glory”.
The conductor of the evening is, like Liszt, a musician from Hungary who has travelled Europe. Levente Török has already worked as assistant to world-famous conductors such as Simon Rattle and Teodor Currentzis, and as the principal conductor of the Ulm Theatre, but from this season onwards he will continue as the principal conductor of the Mecklenburg State Theatre.
