It embodied the alliance of two forward-looking people ready to build the future: László Varga, the chairman and chief executive officer of Hungarian State Railways, and Tibor Szőke, the orchestra's first chief conductor. One would be hard pressed to find a more suitable programme for this jubilee concert than Beethoven's first and final symphonies. The nine symphonies cross the composer's oeuvre like a giant colonnade. The first and the last, the starting and arrival points, serve as an interesting and exciting survey of the path that the composer's creative genius made. The First Symphony still bears the marks of the influence of his great teacher, Haydn, while the Ninth starts out as the mystical story of the creation of everything out of nothing, which logically leads in the end to the only possible resolution: the Ode to Joy and the sound of the human voice. A huge gamble at the time, today it is the music of the greatest celebrations. Such celebrations as the 75th birthday of the MÁV Symphony Orchestra.
Conducting the First Symphony will be Daniel Boico, the orchestra's chief conductor. Taking his place on the podium for the Ninth Symphony will be Charles Dutoit.

Presented by: MÁV Symphony Orchestra