The distinct features of gypsy music - its rhythmic freedom, unusual modulations and unique timbres - made a deep impression on the young Ferenc Liszt, who published the pieces of his collection Hungarian Songs between 1840 and 1943. From 1847, he started publishing his Hungarian Rhapsodies, also choosing six of these piano pieces to score for orchestra. These have remained popular elements of the classical orchestral repertoire ever since. Liszt allowed his Piano Concerto No. 2 to ripen for some time: he started it in 1839 as a globe-trotting virtuoso, but in 1861, when he finished it, he had already retired from the concert stage and was devoting much of his time to composing. The concerto is a single movement made up of five sections, each of which explores the various "characters” of a single theme.
Richard Strauss discovered the genre of the symphonic - or tone - poem early on. As early as the 1880s, after completing the orchestral fantasy Aus Italien, he wrote Macbeth, Don Juan and Tod und Verklärung. Also Sprach Zarathustra is the work of the mature composer who wrote of the piece, "I did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray Nietzsche's great work in music. […] The whole symphonic poem is intended as a homage to Nietzsche's genius, which found its greatest expression in his book Also Sprach Zarathustra.”


Presented by: Budapest Festival Orchestra