Since September 2017, Sir Simon Rattle has led the London Symphony Orchestra. Founded in 1904, the ensemble has for many decades been considered one of the world's leading orchestras, beyond its position in the British capital. The concert programme with which the newly coupled conductor and orchestra will be performing for the Hungarian audience for the first time together was put together in the spirit of the sharp contrasts that have become prevalent in concert programming these days. For Béla Bartók and Anton Bruckner were truly worlds apart. While Bartók was characterised by relentless conciseness, Bruckner was epic in scale and favoured 'magic repeats'. With its own four-movement symphonic form and strongly contrapuntal compositional structure, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta in part continues the Viennese classical tradition and, also in part, that of the Baroque era. His Symphony No. 6, on the other hand - while admittedly also a four-movement work - is wedded through and through to the Romantic system of gestures and manner of expression. The two pieces are thus suited to displaying both the conductor's and the orchestra's wide-ranging virtues as each work is played, one after another.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest