In Full Flower, the first movement of Two Pictures, dates from 1910, a year before Bluebeard's Castle, and reveals the influence of Debussy. The second, Village Dance, is raw and sharp hand-clapping, foot-stomping music that sometimes points the way forward all the way to Dance Suite. Written in 1930/31, The Piano Concerto No. 2 shows many Neoclassical and Neo-Baroque features, reflecting the music of both Stravinsky and Bach. With its own five-movement grandly arcing format, the Concerto for Orchestra is one of Bartók's most massive orchestral works. Although the scope and weight of the movements and the seriousness of their message are symphonic in character, the tradition of the Baroque concerto is revived by many representative instrumental solos running through all the movements of the work. Bartók wrote the work in the summer and early autumn of 1943 after being commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Fülöp Ránki was born in Budapest in 1995. Exerting a great influence on his musical development were his parents, Edit Klukon and Dezső Ránki; his professors at the Liszt Academy were Jenő Jandó and István Lantos. Gergely Kesselyák, third-prize winner of both the 1994 Arturo Toscanini International Conducting Competition in Parma and Hungarian Television's 1995 International Conducting Competition is a recognised and versatile Hungarian conductor.

Presented by: Hungarian National Philharmonic