classical music, opera, theatre

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Schumann, Debussy, Kurtág, Ravel

one interval
Béla Bartók National Concert Hall

Ticket prices

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This concert by Tabea Zimmermann and the Budapest Festival Orchestra starts with two out-of-the-ordinary concert works by Schumann: the first made remarkable by the unusual solo forces employed, and the cello concerto by the unique musical innovations that can be interpreted in a myriad of different ways. After the world-famous German violist serving as the Berlin Philharmonic's resident artist for the 2020/21 season performs the work she has transcribed, we will get to hear the young Debussy's atmospheric tale of spring awakening in Rome. The colourful programme will continue with György Kurtág's youthful and Bartókian Movement for Viola and Orchestra, written when the composer was seeking his own voice, and conclude with the compilation from Ravel's monumental ballet.

In Schumann's remarkable yet neglected work, four modern horns - which had been developed around that same time - play the solo part alongside an orchestra containing two more natural horns. From its very first notes, the three-movement concert piece transports the audience into German forests and landscapes. After the first movement and the melancholy romance, the piece ends with a rhythmic finale.
Dominating in place of virtuosity in the Cello Concerto, which was for a long time attributed to a disturbed mind but is now considered linked to Schumann's late style, are lyrical monologues. Due to its high register, the cello part practically cries out for an arrangement for viola, which was made in 2018.
In 1885, Debussy received a four-year scholarship to study in Rome, from where he was obliged to send a musical work each year to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The committee deemed Printemps (1887) colourful but too modern - becoming the first instance when the word "impressionism” was first used with respect to Debussy's music.
The world knows György Kurtág for the unmistakably unique style of his musical miniatures. Before studying contemporary Western music in Paris, however, he enjoyed a creative period at home in Hungary. The final piece of that period was his Viola Concerto, with which Kurtág paid tribute to Bartók's late style and won himself the Erkel Award in 1954. Its tranquil and lyrical first movement ended up becoming an independent concert piece after the conductor withdrew the others.
Ravel spent three years composing the ballet Daphnis et Chloé. One of his greatest masterpieces, it tells the story of an ancient Greek pastoral romance. Nowadays, this "choreographic symphony” employing a massive orchestra, many percussionists and a chorus is most popular in the form of the suites the composer compiled from it. The second suite includes the famous Daybreak scene, the Pantomime relating the story of Pan and Syrinx, and the dance movement, wild with abandon, that concludes the piece.

Presented by: Budapest Festival Orchestra

Sections

  • Iván Fischer
  • viola
    Tabea Zimmermann

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