'I dedicate my all, my entire being to this,' Miklós Perényi once said about the humility of his artistic performance. On this occasion, Perényi's refined cello skills will evoke profoundly personal confessions of homesickness, nostalgia and regret. Though Dvořák - in the wake of an earlier failure - had long believed that the cello was not properly suited to such a prominent role, his Cello Concerto in B minor, which he began writing during his final stay in America, is now quite probably the most popular cello concerto piece of all time. Brahms perceptibly characterised Dvořák's composition as 'a truly masculine piece' and is himself represented in this concert with his Symphony No. 1, a work he struggled to complete and that matured over a long period. Brahms was finally released from the paralysing influence of the works of Beethoven, partly through the use of a recognisable passage from Ode to Joy. Brahms later sarcastically noted that 'the similarity is truly striking, but what is more surprising is that any ass can hear it.'
Holding the baton for this concert will be Gábor Takács-Nagy, the world-conquering chamber musician turned inspirational conductor.

Presented by: Concerto Budapest