20:00 FRIDAY 9 SEPTEMBER 2022
JESUS HEART JESUIT CHURCH
Kodály 140 – concert 1
Horatii Carmen
Cohors generosa
Pange lingua
Laudes organi
Geneva Psalm 114
Advent songs
Stabat Mater
Miserere
I Will Go Look for Death
Lament
Missa brevis
Conductor: Zoltán Pad
Hungarian Radio Choir
Márton Levente Horváth – organ
Major masterpieces and rarely heard works are performed in the six-part Kodály series of the Hungarian Radio Choir and Children’s Choir. In the first concert, the former is represented by Kodály’s famous Missa brevis. In itself, Stabat Mater represents both the young and the old composer because the first version of the work dates from 1898, written when he was a student in Trnava aged just 16. More than six decades later, he reworked it at the request of the priest of St. Ladislaus Church in Kőbánya. Another work played at this inaugural recital is Kodály’s last completed composition, Laudes organi, written on commission of an American guild of organists and the core theme of which is a 12th century Gregorian melody.
Tickets: HUF 2500 (student and senior discount -20%)
20:00 THURSDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2022
SZILÁGYI DEZSŐ SQUARE REFORMED CHURCH
Kodály 140 – concert 2
Song to King St. Stephen
Come, Holy Spirit, Lord God
First Communion
Sándor Sík Te Deum
Jesus and the Traders
Our Father
Day Song
An Ode for Music
To Ferenc Liszt
Norwegian Girls
Who Are Always Late
Media vita in morte sumus
Evening
The Aged
Geneva Psalm 121
Supplication
Conductor: Ferenc Sapszon Jnr.
Hungarian Radio Choir
“Music is nourishment, and a comforting elixir. Music multiplies the beauty of life and all its values,” Kodály declared. The choral work An Ode for Music was composed for the annual Cork International Choral Festival in Ireland. He compiled the text from the poem The Passions by 18th century poet William Collins. However, in the second part of the work he inserted three lines from a song that appears in Act III of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.: ‘Orpheus with his lute made trees, / And the mountain tops that freeze, / Bow themselves when he did sing.’ According to Kodály: “… he who begins life with music will have this reflecting on his future like golden sunshine, and receives such a treasure that will help overcome many troubles”. Shakespeare expressed the same thing this way: ‘In sweet music is such art, / Killing care and grief of heart.’
Tickets: HUF 2500 (student and senior discount -20%)
18:00 SATURDAY 24 september 2022
AULA MAGNA, ELTE FACULTY OF LAW
Kodály 140 – concert 3
Upper Junior
Shepherd’s Tune
Bunny
Solfege Canon
Jesus and the Children
Senior Choir
Five Tantum ergo
Upper Junior
Angel Garden – folk game
Goat Game
Hen Game
Candle Game
Sheep In, Wolf Out
Market Game
Senior Choir
To Singing Youth
Sorry!
Golden Freedom (Aurea libertas)
The Straw Man
Ladybird
László Lengyel
Whitsuntide
Conductors: Soma Dinyés and Katalin Körber Vargáné
Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir
Organ: Dr. Balázs Szabó
This concert provides a hugely diverse cross-section of works for children’s choir by Zoltán Kodály, from the short practice pieces designed for albums to the most popular, longer masterpieces, encompassing ecclesiastical works with organ accompaniment and folk games written for tots.
Tickets: HUF 2500
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 MONDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2022
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Dohnányi Season Ticket 1
Bartók: Dance Suite, No. 77, BB. 86
Bartók: Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 2, BB. 35
Strauss: Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra
Strauss: Don Juan, Op. 20
Conductor: János Kovács
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Zoltán Fejérvári (piano)
Bartók’s youthful piano concerto movement – perhaps not independently of Strauss’s early work, which employed a similar setup – was originally to have had the title Burlesque. Later on, Bartók planned to introduce and publish it under the name Scherzo. However, fate took it down a different path; both the premiere and the publication of the work never happened. The score of the composition lay in a drawer for many decades and it only came to light after the composer’s death. It now appears evident that from among the early Bartók compositions, the Scherzo displays many progressive elements. “The dance fantasy, which in some places emphasizes the recruitment-csardas origins of its own musical material, and in other places, through its orchestration and setting, carries the listener into a peculiar, grotesque, realistic-unrealistic world. And it is almost natural that Richard Strauss’s Burlesque can be reckoned as part of the inspiration for this latter sound,” wrote György Kroó.
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3500
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 SATURDAY 1 OCTOBER 2022
ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE
Kodály 140 – concert 4
Hymn of Zrínyi
Geneva Psalm 50
Cease Your Bitter Weeping
Psalmus Hungaricus
Conductor: Zoltán Pad, Tamás Vásáry
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad) and Children’s Choir
(principal conductor: Soma Dinyés)
Attila Fekete (tenor)
The programme of the fourth concert in the series comprising choral works by Zoltán Kodály revolves around the concepts of Reformation. Psalmus Hungaricus was inspired by a psalm paraphrasing written by a 16th century Reformed preacher; the piece based on András Szkhárosi Horvát’s Song of Consolation could be the counterpart of this great work, “its emotional richness from bitter temper to gentle entreaty is similar to the tone of Psalmus,” writes Péter Ordasi. Naturally, at one time such a high quality composition “could not have even been dreamed of by the melodic-minded former students of the old Reformed colleges. The new choral work takes an ancient Hungarian melody into the embrace of its vast poetry: the song starting Cease Your Bitter Weeping by András Szkhárosi Horvát. This new Kodály psalm is marvellous music, the purest, most noble sound that can be heard in our barbarian days,” writes Aladár Tóth.
Tickets: HUF 2500 (student and senior discount -20%)
20:00 MONDAY 10 OCTOBER 2022
MATTHIAS CHURCH
Anno Sacri 1 – Rome, 1707, “Händel in Rome”
Händel: Nisi Dominus
Händel: Salve Regina
Händel: Dixit Dominus
Conductor: Václav Luks
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad)
Nóra Ducza (soprano), Alíz Ballabás (soprano), József Csapó (countertenor), Attila Sebők (tenor), Szabolcs Hámori (bass)
In July 1707, three Händel compositions were performed in the Santa Maria di Montesanto church in Rome. Nisi Dominus on 13 July, Dixit Dominus on the 16th, and Salve Regina on the 19th. The concerts were sponsored by the influential Colonna family. These three works rank among the most outstanding sacred music achievements of Händel’s particularly fertile years spent in Italy. Years later, he occasionally borrowed shorter or longer passages from one or other of them. For example, material from the psalm instrumentalization Dixit Dominus appears in no fewer than ten works he composed later. The fact that Händel required a double chorus and double string orchestra in the Nisi Dominus psalm composition, which was rare for him, says much about the musical pomp of churches in Rome at that time.
Tickets: HUF 3000 (student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 THURSDAY 27 OCTOBER 2022
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Tamás Vásáry Schubert series 1
Schubert: Symphony No. 1 in D major, D. 82
Schubert: Symphony No. 3 in D major, D. 220
Schubert: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485
Conductor: Vásáry Tamás
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Tamás Vásáry’s Schubert series includes several rarely performed compositions among epochal masterpieces. In this first concert of the cycle three of the composer’s early symphonies are performed, which date between 1813-1816, that is, they are pieces from the hand of a 16-19-year-old genius. Schubert wrote his first symphonies for the student orchestra of the Vienna Piarist college, in which he also played violin and conducted, thus he knew intimately the repertoire of the ensemble. “It disturbs me without me knowing why. Its minuet is enchanting, and it seems to me that in the trio one can hear angels singing,” he noted in his diary regarding the Mozart symphony in G minor. The minuet of his fifth symphony is solid proof of just how immersed he was in this music.
Tickets: HUF 8000/7000/5000/3000
(student and senior discount -20%)
REPEAT CONCERT:
19:00 Friday 28 October 2022
Hangvilla Multifunctional Community Space, Veszprém
19:30 FRIDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2022
MÜPA BUDAPEST – BARTÓK BÉLA NATIONAL CONCERT HALL
Lehel Season Ticket 1
Dohnányi: American Rhapsody, Op. 47
Dohnányi: Konzertstück, Op. 12
Webber: Requiem
Conductor: Gábor Káli
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad)
László Fenyő (cello), Klára Kolonits (soprano), Boldizsár László (baritone)
Ernő Dohnányi wrote his grand orchestral composition American Rhapsody (1953) in the final period of his career, in the United States, in which, as he put it, American folk songs have greater form “just like in Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies.” From among the rearranged melodies, the song The Wayfaring Stranger became the central element of the composition, thereby reflecting Dohnányi’s specific, emigre situation. Konzertstück written for cello and orchestra half a century earlier also had a personal motivation: in this work, the composer remembers his father who was an excellent cellist. The Requiem presented in 1985 with the input of world stars was also a tribute: the world-famous musical composer wrote it in memory of his organist-composer father who had died a few years before.
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3000/2000
(student and senior discount -20%)
20:00 WEDNESDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2022
HOUSE OF MUSIC, HUNGARY
Mozartissimo
Mozart: Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K.183
Mozart: Rondo in B-flat major, K.269
Tchaikovsky: Suite No. 4, ‘Mozartiana’, Op. 61
Conductor: Péter Dobszay
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Éva Osztrosits (violin)
The 19-20-year-old Mozart composed several violin concertos in a relatively short time. The Rondo in B-flat major also fits into this timeline, in 1776, which he dedicated to one of his excellent colleagues in Salzburg, the violinist Brunetti, and he intended to have it as an alternative movement for his B-flat major violin concerto. These days it most often appears as a piece in its own right, this time performed by the brilliant young violinist Éva Osztrosits. In the second part of the concert, we hear the remarkable Mozart homage by Tchaikovsky, one of Romanticism’s most Mozartian musicians, and which in an extremely surprising way also reflects on Liszt, another contemporary composer.
Tickets: HUF 3000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 TUESDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2022
AULA MAGNA, ELTE FACULTY OF LAW
Sapszon Season Ticket 1
Poulenc: Sept chansons
Elgar: Four Choral Songs, Op. 53
Hindemith: Six chansons
Rautavaara: Halavan himmean alla (In the Shade of the Willow)
Brahms: Fünf Gesänge, Op. 104
Conductor: Máté Szabó Sipos
Hungarian Radio Choir
This recital by Máté Szabó Sipos and Hungarian Radio Choir features choral works written to poems by greats of world literature such as Rilke, Rückert, Byron, Apollinaire and Éluard. The majority of compositions belong to the composers’ most personal, lyrical, frequently somewhat nostalgic works, besides which they pose a considerable challenge to choirs. For example, Edward Elgar’s choral cycle completed over a century ago comes up with some truly surprising musical solutions, which only become a true experience in the performance of the most practiced choirs not only in their own time but today, too.
Tickets: HUF 2500 (student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 MONDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2022
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Dohnányi Season Ticket 2
Ravel: Pavane for a Dead Princess
Debussy: Two Dances
Saint-Saëns: Morceau de concert for Harp and Orchestra, Op. 154
Debussy: The Chosen Young Lady – La Damoiselle Elue
Ravel: La Valse
Conductor: János Kovács
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad)
Andrea Vigh (harp), Kinga Kriszta (soprano), Szilvia Vörös (mezzosoprano)
At the concert comprising fine, delicately toned pieces by French composers such brilliant musicians take to the stage as harpist Andrea Vigh and opera singers Kinga Kriszta and Szilvia Vörös. Debussy’s youthful and rarely performed cantata ‘The Chosen Young Lady’, which has a very special intonation, could well serve as the motto for the evening. Dances play a key role at the concert – whether old, new or merely imagined – as does the harp, as a special solo instrument, becoming the focal point of the musical events in works by Debussy and Saint-Saëns. The work by the latter is one of his later pieces, completed in 1918.
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3500
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 TUESDAY 6 DECEMBER 2022
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Tamás Vásáry Schubert series 2
Schubert: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, ‘Tragic’, D. 417
Schubert: Mass in A-flat major, D. 678
Conductor: Tamás Vásáry
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad)
Zita Szemere (soprano), Anna Csenge Fürjes (mezzosoprano), Szabolcs Brickner (tenor), Szabolcs Hámori (bass)
When Schubert set about writing his fourth symphony, the 19-year-old composer had already penned a good few genre-creating songs, church compositions, and numerous chamber pieces. The astonishing creative fertility of the young composer can only be compared with that of Mozart. The subtitle of the C minor symphony (‘Tragic’) originates from Schubert himself, but it remains to this day unclear what exactly he wanted to refer to with this designator since the fundamental character of the work has not a shred of tragedy in it. In the following years, Schubert’s creative drive slackened somewhat, several of his works were set aside unfinished or were left to mature for a long time. One such example is his magnificent celebratory Mass in A-flat major, innovative in many respects, the final version of which took three years to be born, and like so many other highly significant, monumental Schubert works, this one was similarly not performed during the life of the composer.
Tickets: HUF 8000/7000/5000/3000
(student and senior discount -20%)
16:00 SUNDAY 11 DECEMBER 2022
BUDAPEST MUSIC CENTER
Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir Advent concert
Conductors: Soma Dinyés, Judit Walter,
Katalin Körber Vargáné
“At this concert evoking a true Advent spirit, we can not only wonder at the Upper Juniors in their heart-warming folk Nativity play but also glimpse into the active musical life of the children’s choir. We show what a joy it is to sing seasonal Christmas motets with chamber groups and how uplifting it is to hear the velvety voices of keen girls and boys whose voices are just breaking in the productions of youth mixed choirs. And last but by no means least, our gifted instrumental soloists reveal what they have learned,” says Soma Dinyés, principal conductor
Tickets: HUF 1000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 TUESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2022
MÜPA BUDAPEST – BARTÓK BÉLA NATIONAL CONCERT HALL
Lehel Season Ticket 2
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto in B-flat minor, Op. 23
Mussorgsky: Night on a Bare Mountain
Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32
Conductor: János Kovács
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Dmitry Masleev (piano)
János Kovács conducts an impressive and popular programme of works by Russian masters of Romanticism. Soloist Dmitry Masleev is winner of the 2015 Moscow Tchaikovsky competition, an artist who in past years has collaborated with the biggest stars in the firmament. Now, a lucky few can enjoy his consummate skills here in Hungary. The artist who represents the finest traditions of the Russian school of piano makes appearances in the biggest concert halls in the world, to the evident enthusiasm of critics and public alike. Reviews are equally highly complimentary of his inimitable technique and deep expressiveness of play. Now he has the chance to dazzle with both – expressive power and technique – as soloist of Tchaikovsky’s epochal piano concerto.
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3000/2000
(student and senior discount -20%)
18:00 WEDNESDAY 14 DECEMBER 2022
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir Christmas concert
Conductors: Soma Dinyés, Katalin Körber Vargáné
Organ and piano: Dr. Balázs Szabó
The programme encompasses several centuries of the most beautiful music from the Christmas season. Beginning with an early Gregorian Advent hymn, through the motet of Heinrich Fink, and via the works of Hermann Schein and J. S. Bach arranging an identical melody we move from the shades of Advent to the glittering brilliance of Christmas. Besides putting on a folk Nativity play, the Upper Juniors sing a collection of Hungarian Christmas songs while the Senior Choir and chamber singing groups reveal an infinitely broad palette of Christmas melodies from Hallein to Peru, from New Jersey to Paris.
Tickets: HUF 3000/2500/2000/1500
(student and senior discount -20%)
20:00 TUESDAY 20 DECEMBER 2022
MATTHIAS CHURCH
Anno Sacri 2 – Leipzig 1722-1723
J.S. Bach: Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40
Graupner: Sinfonia in F major, GWV 571
P. Telemann: Concerto for Recorder in C major, TWV 51:C1
F. Fasch: Orchestral Suite in D major, FaWV K:D2
S. Bach: Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191
Conductor: Zoltán Pad and Erik Bosgraaf
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir
Erik Bosgraaf (blockflute), Eszter Zemlényi (soprano), Viola Thurnay (alto), Zoltán Megyesi (tenor), Lóránt Najbauer (bass)
Telemann received an unrefusable offer from Hamburg, Christoph Graupner’s dispute with his Darmstadt employer was settled, Fasch withdrew from the tender, so none of them were in the running for the post of cantor at the Thomaskirche, Leipzig from 1723. Thus the city fathers were forced to ‘make do’ with Johann Sebastian Bach; Graupner’s comforting words represented some consolation: Bach “is a musician just as strong on the organ as he is expert in church works and capelle pieces” and a man who “will honestly and properly perform the functions entrusted to him.” At his Budapest concert, Erik Bosgraaf, one of the world’s most virtuoso recorder and blockflute players, an artist open to all kinds of musical influences, performs works by the four Leipzig aspirants, including a violin concerto in his own arrangement.
Tickets: HUF 3000 (student and senior discount -20%)
18:00 SUNDAY 1 JANUARY 2023
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
New Year overture
Joint concert with Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Liszt Academy and M5
Conductor: Oliver von Dohnányi
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Ildikó Szabady (flute), Zoltán Schwartz (violin) Yosuke Shimizu (cello)
In the last three years, lovers of music have been able to get the New Year off to a flying start with a joint concert by the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Liszt Academy on the evening of 1 January. The concert is broadcast by public service radio and TV channels. Popular works of music are aired under the batons of the cream of Hungary’s conductors. First it was Tamás Vásáry, then János Kovács, and in 2022 Ádám Medveczky conducting the ensemble and young artists of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. Things are no different this year: Oliver von Dohnányi conducts rousing melodies on the first day of 2023, with the concert once again broadcast on public service stations.
Tickets: HUF 12000/10000/8000/5000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 WEDNESDAY 11 JANUARY 2023
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
100th anniversary of the birth of György Ligeti – memorial concert
Ligeti: Romanian Concerto
Ligeti: Violin Concerto
Bartók: Concerto
Conductor: Gergely Vajda
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Márta Ábrahám (violin)
“Bartók’s last change of style was the most radical: in the final years of his life he began writing totally tonally and consonantly (Concerto, Piano Concerto No. 3). This caused outrage in many and they called Bartók the traitor of new music. However, anyone examining these works in detail will be forced to concede that they have nothing to do with betrayal. These works are the peaks of modern music, unparalleled examples of simplification, transcendence, classicism,” wrote György Ligeti. On the centenary of the birth of this ground-breaking artist, we pay tribute with an early and a late work of his, both impressive confessions about folk music and the Bartókian heritage. Soloist for the Ligeti Violin Concerto is Márta Ábrahám. This is the first time the artist performs the composition in front of an audience.
Tickets: HUF 3000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 WEDNESDAY 18 JANUARY 2023
MÜPA BUDAPEST – BARTÓK BÉLA NATIONAL CONCERT HALL
Lehel Season Ticket 3
Ravel: Spanish Rhapsody
Saint-Saëns: Introduction and Rondo capriccioso
Hubay: Carmen Fantaisie
de Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat – suite, No. 1-2
Ravel: Bolero
Conductor: Gergely Vajda
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Barnabás Kelemen (violin)
The Barnabás Kelemen and Radio Orchestra concert is infused with Mediterranean temperament and a Spanish feeling for life. It comprises pure flamboyant, incandescent compositions, including a virtuoso concert piece by a Hungarian, the young Jenő Hubay. Originally written for violin and piano, the work dates from 1876, that is, immediately following the premiere of Bizet’s famous opera in 1875. In 1880, the violinist-composer added the Fantaisie to a joint concert with Károly Aggházy in Paris, and in the audience were the painter Mihály Munkácsy and Saint-Saëns. The latter had very warm words to say about both artists. According to a contemporary report, ‘the audience applause just kept going and going, and after this concert, the virtuoso patriots now take their place among the renowned celebrities of the Parisian art world.’
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3000/2000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 FRIDAY 20 JANUARY 2023
AULA MAGNA ELTE FACULTY OF LAW
Sapszon Season Ticket 2
Schumann: Vier Doppelchörige Gesänge, Op. 141
Killmayer: Wie in Welschland lau und blau… – for male choir
Schumann: Romances for Women’s Choir and Piano, Op. 69
Hosokawa: Lotus Flower – for mixed choir and percussion
Schumann: Romances and Ballads
Conductor: Philipp Ahmann
Hungarian Radio Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad)
Philipp Ahmann conducts rarely performed choral compositions by Robert Schumann in the company of two 20th-21st century composers. The great German conductor has been leader of Leipzig MDR Radio Choir since 2020. Earlier he worked with the chorus of North German Radio (NDR Hamburg) as well as ensembles and orchestras specialized in the music of the Renaissance, Baroque or the most modern age. Ahmann is not only a world-renowned conductor of unaccompanied choral music but he also enjoys considerable celebrity as conductor of large-scale oratorios, and a few years ago he debuted as an opera conductor. He has made many recordings and received sincere critical acclaim for his CD of Schumann and Killmayer pieces (2019).
Tickets: HUF 2500 (student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 THURSDAY 26 JANUARY 2023
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Tamás Vásáry Schubert series 3
Schubert: Symphony No. 6 in C major, D. 589
Schubert: Symphony No. 7 in E major, D. 729 (orchestration by Brian Newbould)
Conductor: Tamás Vásáry
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Schubert’s seventh symphony (E major) was born in August 1821. In terms of the structure and form of the four-movement work it can be considered complete, yet at the same time he only finalized a part of the orchestration, the slow introduction and 110 bars of the fast section of the first movement. More than one thousand bars ‘only’ consist of the more or less finalized accompaniment of the principal melody, and a few notations regarding the orchestration. It is thought that Schubert set aside the composition to make room for his operatic plans. For some time the manuscript was kept by Mendelssohn before it found its way to England. Several artists have ‘completed’ the work – John Francis Barnett in 1881 and Felix Weingartner in 1934; Tamás Vásáry performs the Brian Newbould variation (1980).
Tickets: HUF 8000/7000/5000/3000
(student and senior discount -20%)
10:00 and 11:30 WEDNESDAY 1 FEBRUARY 2023
HOUSE OF MUSIC, HUNGARY
“That’s awesome!” – Youth concert
Respighi: The Birds (Gli Ucelli)
Saint-Säens: The Carnival of the Animals
Conductor: János Kovács
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Free admission but prior registration required!
The character, sounds, movement of animals, sayings, tales or even a particular allegorical-symbolic association related to their very nature have proven fertile ground for composers for many centuries, and continue to be to this day. Saint-Säens’s masquerade, The Carnival of the Animals, is an unending favourite, not only the cycle itself but also individual movements of this evergreen of classical music. Italian Ottorino Respighi who created in the 20th century was a huge fan of birds and early music, and he was able to indulge both passions in his suite Gli Ucelli (The Birds) because he arranged 17-18th century works in which the composers, for example, Pasquini and Rameau, managed to encapsulate a typical characteristic of a given avian species using the stylistic means of the age.
19:30 WEDNESDAY 8 FEBRUARY 2023
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Dohnányi Season Ticket 3
Puccini: Crisantemi
Fauré: Pelléas et Mélisande – suite
Rossini: Stabat Mater
Conductor: Riccardo Frizza
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hungarian Radio Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad)
Polina Pasztircsák (soprano), Dorottya Láng (mezzosoprano), Giulio Pelligra (tenor), Marcell Bakonyi (bass)
Maurice Maeterlinck’s piece Pelléas et Mélisande is an especially characteristic work of late 19th century drama. Debussy wrote an opera, Schönberg a symphonic poem, and Sibelius and Fauré incidental music for this tale of doomed love. Fauré had only a short time to compose the score: “I shall have barely a month and a half to write all this music. It is true that part of it already exists in my big head!” Péter Várnai gives his views of Rossini’s Stabat Mater: “The greatest masterpiece of 19th century Italian church music style after Verdi’s Requiem. There is not a trace of the comedy opera sound, harmonic simplicity and orchestral tonality of The Barber of Seville in this work. The audience is received into the more elevated, more profound and nuanced world of William Tell.”
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3500
(student and senior discount -20%)
20:00 WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2023
HOUSE OF MUSIC, HUNGARY
Debussy: Bergamasque suite, L. 75 (orch. Gustave Cloëz & André Caplet)
Rodrigo: Concierto Andaluz
Prokofiev: Classical Symphony in D major, Op. 25
Conductor: Riccardo Frizza
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
András Csáki, Péter Girán, Dávid Fellegi, Dávid Pavlovits (guitar)
What the mandolin is to the Italians and the bouzouki to the Greeks is the guitar to the Spanish. The lovelorn singer accompanying his song with plucked string instrument is one of the standard ‘accessories’ of Mediterranean ambience. And talking of the guitar and Spain: compositions written by 20th century master Joaquín Rodrigo for the guitar perfectly encapsulate the Mediterranean worldview and spirit. This time, however, the Radio Orchestra concert does not feature his famous Concierto de Aranjuez guitar concerto known for its catchy melodies but instead the extensive Concierto Andaluz for four guitars that launches with a spine-tingling bolero.
Tickets: HUF 3000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 TUESDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2023
PESTI VIGADÓ
Sapszon Season Ticket 3
Stravinsky: Four Russian Peasant Songs, W35 (Podlyudniye)
Márton Levente Horváth: Incantations
Debussy: En blanc et noir, pour piano à quatre mains, CD142, L.134
Stravinsky: The Wedding, W37 (Les Noces)
Conductor: Zoltán Pad
Artists of Hungarian Radio Choir and
Symphony Orchestra
Kinga Kriszta (soprano), Lúcia Megyesi Schwartz (mezzosoprano), István Horváth (tenor), Zsolt Haja (bariton)
The concert is bookended by two Stravinsky compositions dating from roughly the same time. Both works were written in the final phase of the composer’s Russian period, that is, in the second half of the 1910s. Stravinsky drew inspiration from Russian folk texts and customs, yet at the same time, in order to capture the special, magical effect he required extraordinary compositional techniques and innovative ‘tricks’ never tried before. As regards innovative techniques, Debussy can be considered his inspirational master; the concert includes a performance of the choral arrangement of his four-hand piano work featuring a host of innovations. And talking of magic: Márton Levente Horváth composed his new work at the request of Zoltán Pad, the title of which – Incantations – speaks for itself.
Tickets: HUF 2500
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 THURSDAY 2 MARCH 2023
PESTI VIGADÓ
Kodály 140 – concert 5
The Arms of Hungary
The Hungarian Nation
The Forgotten Song of Bálint Balassi
Mohács
Buda Castle Te Deum
Conductor: Zoltán Pad
Hungarian Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra
Zita Szemere (soprano), Atala Schöck (alto), János Szerekován (tenor), Géza Gábor (bass)
‘Forgotten songs – belated melodies”. Hungarian Radio Choir’s Kodály series carries us off to the age of Petőfi, Vörösmarty and Kisfaludy, with the entire cycle closed by a most grandiose work, Buda Castle Te Deum. Zoltán Kodály published piano and orchestral accompaniment songs written in the 1910s under the title ‘Belated melodies’, in which he set to music noble verses by the greats of Hungarian poetry (Berzsenyi, Kölcsey, Csokonai). Unlike poetry of other nations that followed happier pathways, these texts had to wait a century before receiving a worthy musical setting. Károly Kisfaludy’s Mohács had a particularly long delay; Kodály published it in 1965, making it one of his last works.
Tickets: HUF 2500 (student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 TUESDAY 7 MARCH 2023
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Virtuosi recital
Conductor: János Kovács
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Children’s Choir (principal conductor: Soma Dinyés), and finalists of Virtuosi 2022
Virtuosi (Virtuózok) is MTVA’s classical music talent contest launched in 2014 and now in its seventh season. Tonight, young artists discovered in the show take to the stage in the company of Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The concert programme is further enhanced by Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir.
Tickets: HUF 3000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 WEDNESDAY 22 MARCH 2023
MÜPA BUDAPEST – BARTÓK BÉLA NATIONAL CONCERT HALL
Lehel Season Ticket 4
Gounod: Requiem (1842)
Théodore Dubois: The Seven Last Words of Christ
Conductor: György Vashegyi
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad)
Borbála Keszei (soprano), Katalin Szutrély (soprano), Eszter Balogh (alto), Márton Komáromi (tenor), Tassis Christoyannis (bass baritone)
György Vashegyi, a devotee of 17-18th century French music, has recently become increasingly interested in French music of the 19th century. For this evening’s Lehel Season Ticket recital he conducts two rarities of church music. In 1839, the young Gounod won the Prix de Rome. He spent nearly three years in the Eternal City where he was exposed to vital musical impulses of early church music, in particular Palestrina. Works he wrote during this period included several liturgical pieces or compositions inspired by the liturgy. One of his most fascinating works dating from the Rome sojourn is the orchestral Requiem, completed in 1842 and unpublished to this day. The other work was written by Théodore Dubois, a leading artist and teacher of the turn of the century: the oratorio The Seven Last Words of Christ (1867) was originally for a small orchestra but it proved so popular that it was soon revised for a grand orchestra and performed globally.
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3000/2000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 WEDNESDAY 29 MARCH 2023
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Tamás Vásáry Schubert series 4
Schubert: Symphony No 2 in B-flat major, D. 125
Schubert: Mass in E-flat major, D. 950
Conductor: Tamás Vásáry
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad)
Lilla Horti (soprano), Bernadett Wiedemann (mezzosoprano), Tibor Szappanos (tenor), János Szerekován (tenor), Marcell Bakonyi (bass)
The two works on the programme represent the beginning and very end of the career of Schubert. The second symphony was penned in just 16 days, in December 1814. The piece is packed with characteristic elements of the Schubert style: it is a surprisingly mature and accomplished composition, while at the same time also setting out in clear terms the unique creative profile of Schubert. The Mass in E-flat major dates from 1828, the final year of the life of the composer. It debuted in 1829. Brian Newbould characterized the mass by saying that it was the fulfilment, the pinnacle of Schubert’s entire compositional career, and at the same time it was its swan song, as though the author was already aware of his impending, inevitable passing.
Tickets: HUF 8000/7000/5000/3000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 MONDAY 17 APRIL 2023
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Dohnányi Season Ticket 4
Rachmaninov-Respighi: Études-Tableaux
Respighi: Trittico Botticelliano
Mussorgsky-Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition
Conductor: Riccardo Frizza
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
All the works performed in this concert focus on the connection between music and spectacle, sound and visuality. At the time of the publication of Rachmaninov’s two piano series (Études-Tableaux Op. 33 and Op. 39), he refrained from specifically naming the inspirational source for his ‘picture studies’. However, later when he rearranged a few movements for Respighi’s orchestra, he revealed a few workshop secrets, thus we find descriptions such as ‘the sea and seagulls’, ‘funeral march’ and ‘Red Riding Hood and the wolf’. The composer of Trittico Botticelliano, however, made no secret – nor did Mussorgsky – of which pictures sparked his compositional imagination. Although the three paintings by Botticelli (Spring, Adoration of the Magi, The Birth of Venus) are very different from each other in their character and approach, it was precisely the musical effect inherent in the contrasts that preoccupied Respighi.
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3500
(student and senior discount -20%)
20:00 FRIDAY 21 APRIL 2023
AULA MAGNA ELTE FACULTY OF LAW
Kodály 140 – concert 6
A Birthday Greeting
To the Singing Youth
To the Szeklers
Battle Song
To the Hungarians
La Marseillaise
Wish for Peace
Epigraph
The Peacock
Greeting to St. John
Salló Pista
Gömör Song
Molnár Anna
Transylvanian Lament
Mátra Pictures
See the Gypsies Munching Cheese
Evening Song
Conductor: Péter Erdei
Hungarian Radio Choir
Tickets: HUF 2500
(student and senior discount -20%)
Zoltán Kodály’s “Ballad of Anna Molnár belongs to that rare type of music which, beyond the music, is life itself! It is a ‘work of drama’ which, even without the ingenuity of theatrical direction, is capable of playing itself in a rehearsal room at any minute.” Zoltán Vásárhelyi, principal conductor of the choral version of the ballad, used these words to characterize Kodály’s composition. But others also spotted the sizzling drama and poetic quality of work. “Kodály’s Szekler folk ballad is a true drama, containing psychoanalysis and the demonstration of moods, external and internal events. It is unrivalled. This ballad is a real wonder of the poetic shaping and expressive ability, conjuring up in front of us the passionate, stirring portrait of the heroine with soul made up of surprising, contradictory emotions, of the turbulent story from a relatively modest musical core,”
we read in the report of daily Esti Kurír in 1936.
19:30 TUESDAY 25 APRIL 2023
MÜPA BUDAPEST – BARTÓK BÉLA NATIONAL CONCERT HALL
Lehel Season Ticket 5
Martucci: Notturno, Op. 70, No. 1
Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Strauss: From Italy – Aus Italien, Op. 16
Conductor: Riccardo Frizza
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Gergely Kovács (piano)
Pianist, conductor and composer Giuseppe Martucci was an outstanding figure of late 19th century Italian music. Unlike his Italian contemporaries, as an artist he was never interested in the genre of opera. Instead, he was dedicated to pure instrumental music and it is no coincidence that he was known as the ‘Italian Brahms’. Furthermore, he was an excellent teacher and Ottorino Respighi, one of his most famous students, said of him that he was the father of the rebirth of Italian music; “one could say that the new Italian school of music was founded by Giuseppe Martucci, about whom I am always moved when I think of him”. Maestro Frizza dedicates the entire concert to the spirit of Italy, with Gergely Kovács, who took third prize at the most recent International Liszt Competition, soloist for Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3000/2000
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 WEDNESDAY 3 MAY 2023
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Dohnányi Season Ticket 5
Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
Conductor: Gábor Káli
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad)
Kian Soltani (cello), Csilla Csővári (soprano), Viktória Mester (mezzosoprano), Tibor Szappanos (tenor), Manuel Walser (bass)
This concert features a single composition from the final creative phase of Beethoven and Schumann. Soloist of Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A minor is Kian Soltani, born in Austria into a family of Persian musicians, a gifted artist who conducted studies in Switzerland and Germany. Once seen as a rising star, he is now one of the world’s most in-demand cellists; he regularly performs with the world’s greatest orchestras, conductors and chamber musicians. In terms of his playing, ‘sheer perfection’ and ‘depth of expression’ are recurring plaudits he receives, his stage presence is often characterized as charismatic. He is a performer able to establish an immediate emotional bond with his audiences.
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3500
(student and senior discount -20%)
19:30 WEDNESDAY 10 MAY 2023
MÜPA BUDAPEST – BARTÓK BÉLA NATIONAL CONCERT HALL
Lehel Season Ticket 6
Schubert: Rosamunda – overture
Schubert: ‘Unfinished’ Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944
Conductor: Tamás Vásáry
Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
In 1823, Schubert composed incidental music to the romantic stage play ‘Rosamunda, Princess of Cyprus’. The piece debuted but at the time they performed the introductory music of another work written a few years earlier (Alfonso and Estrella). Originally, the work featuring today on concert podiums as the Rosamunda overture was the overture of another stage piece, The Magic Harp, but when the music of Rosamunda came to be published more than 50 years after the composer’s death, it was associated with this composition. Interestingly, when Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony was performed in Britain, one of the entr’actes of Rosamunda was included as a supplementary movement.
Tickets: HUF 6000/5000/4000/3000/2000
(student and senior discount -20%)
17:00 FRIDAY 26 MAY 2023
BUDAPEST MUSIC CENTER
Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir Whitsun concert
Conductors: Soma Dinyés, Judit Walter, Katalin Körber Vargáné
Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir
Upper Junior Choir
“At the Whitsun concert imbued with the happiness of approaching summer, let’s marvel at how much more virtuoso our instrumental soloists have become this academic year; how the Upper Juniors elect their Whitsun king in the Whitsun folk play; let’s enjoy – as interpreted by the chamber choral groups – the carefree singing shepherds as imagined in London of the 1600s; the Mixed Youth Choir sing to us of the joys of hearts in love yearning for the gentle embrace of nature.” Soma Dinyés, principal conductor
Tickets: HUF 1000
(student and senior discount -20%)
16:00 SUNDAY 4 JUNE 2023
GRAND HALL, LISZT ACADEMY
Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir season ending concert
Conductors: Soma Dinyés, Katalin Körber Vargáné
“Works evoking the songs of closer and more distant nations come to the fore alongside traditional and contemporary folk song arrangements by Hungarian composers, providing an extremely colourful selection of, for example, the folk music of China, Turkey and America. Our instrumental soloists also participate in the exhilarating Renaissance dances of our chamber song productions. The Whitsun game of the Upper Juniors once again promises excitement and their stand-alone programme would not be complete without the gems of Hungarian folk culture, our folk songs.” Soma Dinyés, principal conductor
Tickets: HUF 3000/2500/2000/1500
(student and senior discount -20%)