Shakespeare's works always contain the "passion, emotion, pathos and variety, which are the indispensible requirements for a good libretto" said Benjamin Britten. If we listen to one of his most successful, exciting stage works, the opera A Midsummer Night's Dream, we have to admit he was right. To hear how the same comic material inspired Henry Purcell, listen to the Fairy-Queen, a piece of a very different genre. Dame Emma Kirkby, Howard Williams, and others will ensure the stylistic performance of the music of this matchless genius of the English Baroque.
"A young artist with excellent qualities, worthy of close attention, doubtless seeking his path passionately. One important feature of his music is the obvious kinship of spirit between it and modern French music" wrote Debussy about Bartók in about 1914. We know how important Debussy's art was for the formation of Bartók's individual musical idiom. For a short while the influence of the French composer left an audible imprint on Bartók's style; later this influence passed through subtle filters. The works performed in this concert provide an opportunity to hear these subtle filters, and the instrumentalists from the orchestra take centre-stage as soloists.
Just like Mozart, Beethoven did not write down everything in the pieces he performed himself. In the C minor piano concerto, for instance, a contemporary recalled that he played from a score resembling hieroglyphics. Winner of the 2012 Anda Géza Piano Competition in Zurich, the phenomenal Varvara Nepomnyaschaya, performs not from hieroglyphics, nor from a properly edited score, but by memory and from the heart. Markus Hinterhauser, a member of the jury at the Anda competition said it is "staggering, there are hardly words for the way this girl plays. Quite simply she makes you forget the instrument on which she is playing; more than this cannot really be said of a pianist."
The pieces in this fourth concert in the Anno Sacri concert are closely linked in terms of their original function. Telemann's cantata was written for the second Sunday in Advent, Christen, ätzet diesen Tag for the first day of Christmas (25 December), and Dazu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes for the second day of Christmas (26 December). Of special interest is the Cantata No. 63 written in 1713, which was probably premiered in the Liebfrauenkirche in Halle as part of a solemn act of worship, and it seems that Bach was pleased with the piece, because he had it performed again in Leipzig ten years later.
Shostakovich and Enescu were both 19 years old when they tested their talent in a genre in which the 16-year-old Mendelssohn had written an outstanding, exemplary piece. His influence is unmistakable, particularly in Enescu's composition. The "youngest" work in the concert, Stravinsky's Octet for winds, is indirectly related to Mendelssohn's; he said himself once: "The Octet began with a dream, in which I saw myself in a small room surrounded by a small group of instrumentalists playing some attractive music. I didn't recognize the music, though I listened attentively, and I could not recall any of it the next day, but I remember how curious I was in my dream: how many musicians were there. I also remember that I counted them, there were eight, then I looked again, and saw they were playing on the bassoon, trombone, trumpet, flute and clarinet. I awoke from this little concert in a state of great delight and anticipation and the next morning began to compose."
The Roman-born conductor and composer in his mid-thirties, Sesto Quatrini is one of the most impulsive conductors of our time, of whom stars such as Roberto Alagna and Elina Garanča speak with delight. According to the world-famous conductor Fabio Luisi, he has every ability necessary to create a relationship between the singers, the orchestral musicians and the stage director, so it is no accident that his career as an opera conductor has soared in recent years. In this concert in the Music Academy, alongside compositions by Italian composers he will conduct the Ravel G major concerto, in which the soloist is Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, a great authority and specialist in the art of Ravel.
A symphony whose manuscript UNESCO declared part of world heritage (together with James Cook's nautical journal and the 180,000-piece papyrus collection of the Austrian National Library): an opera overture which in the last hundred years has been played in the middle of the second act and, according to Bence Szabolcsi, "more perfectly models and states the message of the opera than the opera itself." Pieces of great import, tokens of things to come, which perfect and problematic as they are, had a fundamental effect on the musical thinking of the following two hundred years. Enormous question marks, which make them eminently suitable to close a cycle dedicated to the music of Beethoven.
Wagner : COLUMBUS NYITÁNY Wagner : Götterdämmerung – Az istenek alkonya: Siegfrieds Trauermarsch” Wagner: Az Istenek alkonya “Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt” Wagner : Az Istenek alkonya – FinaleWagner : Parsifal – előjáték Wagner: Parsifal – Wehe! Wehe! Was tat ich? Wo war ich? – Kundry és Parsifal duettje II.felv. Wagner: Parsifal – Karfreitagszauber – Nagypénteki varázs – Parsifal III.felv. Közreműködik: Németh Judit, Kovácsházi István MR Szimfonikusok
A zenekar fennállása alatt nagyon sokszor és nagyon sok formában szólaltak már meg a Pál Utcai Fiúk dalai, de ezek, most először, egészen új köntösbe bújnak.
Amikor 1983 nyarán pár unatkozó fiatal elkezdett egy szigetszentmiklósi garázsban csörömpölni, még csak az volt a cél, hogy elüssék egy kicsit az időt. Arra még álmában sem gondolt volna senki, hogy 32 év után Magyarország egyik legszebb, de biztosan a legrangosabb helyén, az MR Szimfonikusokkal adják majd elő saját dalaikat. A lényeg persze éppen a dalokban van, hiszen amelyek között ezen az estén elhangzik majd olyan is, amely azon a régi nyáron született és olyan is, amit még soha nem adtak elő, hiszen nem régen készült el, a következő lemezre.
Igen, a dalok, amelyek annyiszor hangzottak el kis kluboktól kezdve a legnagyobb fesztiválokig, amelyekre annyian táncoltak, amelyeket hallgatva barátságok és szerelmek szövődtek. Egy jó dal bármilyen formában is előadható és mindig jó dal marad, ám ezen az estén a legszebb formájukat kapják: most előbukkanhatnak azok a kis részletek is, amiket a régen agyonjátszott, többször átmásolt kazettákról már régen eltakart a zaj.
Az MR Szimfonikusok és a PUF tagjain kívül persze ott lesznek azok a vendégzenészek is, akik évek óta színesítik az együttes élő fellépéseit: Dióssy Ákos zongorista, vagy Szűcs Qka Krisztián, aki nem csak számtalan fúvós hangszerével vesz részt a produkcióban, de a dalok áthangszerelésében is közreműködik.
A Magyar Művészeti Akadémia emlékhangversennyel tiszteleg Bartók Béla zeneszerző halálának 70. évfordulóján.
