The performance will be broadcasted on our website and YouTube channel.


After starting out with Mozart's Maurerische Trauermusik, we will get to hear his Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, featuring soloist Apolka Bonnyai, and then Brahms's Third Symphony, all performed under the baton of conductor Mátyás Antal.
Mozart's 'Masonic Funeral Music' is a short and slow piece with a solemn atmosphere. Its core is a Gregorian melody, which might seem like a strange idea, as it is well known that the freemasonry movement was at sharp odds with the Catholic church. Mozart, however, adapted elements originating from the Catholic ritual into his work in the most natural way possible. The composer was 26 years when he composed this A major piano concerto, and his days were filled with optimism and happiness, making the piece sparkle with sunshine. It is permeated with youthful charm and cheerfulness, mixed with lyrical tunefulness. Although Brahms wrote his Third Symphony in the home key of F major, minor key characters also emerge into the foreground, thus offering, after Mozart's concerto, a powerful contrast with its sense of drama. The opening theme of the first movement returns several times in the subsequent movements, prompting several analysts of the work to conclude that some kind of programme lies in the background of the symphony. One of the reasons why this is an interesting suggestion is because Brahms was essentially a believer in classicals forms, opposed to the motival composition technique characteristic of the programme music of Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner.

Presented by: Szent István Philharmonic