Liszt Academy Concert Magazine 2014/I

liszt academy concert magazine

liszt academy concert magazine JANUaRy—july 2014

volume 2, issue 1

JANUaRy—july 2014

It is hard to express in words just what boundless opportunities are concealed in the concerts and programmes filling the Liszt Academy's Grand Hall and Solti Hall. Since the reopening we can rediscover the eternal magic of the Grand Hall, which now displays its unparalleled past with even more glory. The former Chamber Hall – today the Sir Georg Solti Chamber Hall – now operates as a marvellous venue for opera. The rejuvenation between the magically restored old walls is tangible. But by the same token, we can almost sense the sublime spirit of the past upon our faces. The freshness of the youngsters and the fire in their sparkling eyes stimulate time and time again the dynamism of music, preserving the world famous heritage of their predecessors. As president of the Liszt Academy, I regard it as my obligation not just to preserve the past and our traditions, but to find rejuvenation, a unique voice and profile. I wish that the concert seasons to come will fortify the great inheritance of the Liszt Academy with fresh momentum, in this way ensuring some unforgettable lifetime experiences. I wish the magic of music will reinforce the sense of togetherness and that the joyous awareness of a mutually pleasurable experience will permeate the souls of all music lovers at the Liszt Academy concerts.

Andrea Vigh President of the Liszt Academy

“Let's go to a concert at the Liszt Academy! Here we are again at the Liszt Academy!” – it has been so good to hear such happy voices since the reopening on October 22. We are suddenly aware just how much the Liszt Academy spirit was missed, its elevated yet intimate atmosphere.

And all in this building that we marvel at like an exceptional work of art.

In addition, we have received a tremendous gift: the long cherished and familiar acoustics seem, in the unanimous verdict of musicians and audiences, even more beautiful than we remember them. From night to night, more than eight hundred people make the pilgrimage to the Liszt Academy for the incomparable experience created by the building, its resonance and, above all, the dedicated musicians. It is hard to get a ticket: one cannot get enough of this building; we eagerly sip from the source of the arts. From one evening to the next, the Liszt Academy conceals surprises. The magic tree in Apollo's sacred wood has blossomed again. I am happy that I could be the gardener of this tree.

András Batta Government commissioner, former President of the Liszt Academy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Concerts in january

11

The Singing City

14

Without Frills

19

The Pianist of an Uninhabited Island

20

Concerts in February

24

From Violin Bow to Tennis Racket

27

Each to their own! Opera and Sexuality

34

Early Music and the Concept of a Musical Work

40

A Quartet of Distinction

43

Concerts in March

44

overture IN STONE

51

Hungarian Jazz Grows Up

59

You Are Alone

60

The Neurobiologist Jazz Pianist

63

Strength in numbers: How Fibonacci taught us how to swing

68

Our Own Kobayashi

69

Concerts in April

72

Action and Adrenalin

77

The Piano Recital

84

Concerts in May

86

The Russian Secret

92

“Beethoven has an unbelievable number of faces” iNTERVIEW WITH DÉNES VÁRJON

98

Corea

103

Amadinda 30

106

Parity – iNTERVIEW WITH ANDREA MELÁTH AND GYULA FEKETE

112

Concert Halls and Acoustics

114

Concerts in June

117

Play chamber music!

120

LISZT MUSEUM – MATINEE CONCERTS

121

Ferenc Liszt Memorial Museum and Research Centre

122

Kidz Academy – Youth programmes at the Liszt Academy

124

In Preparation for the First International Éva Marton Singing Competition

130

Liberation from the Ivory Tower

132

Concert chronology

© György Darabos

Dear Visitors, It is a great feeling for us to see how audiences are again taking possession of the renovated building on Ferenc Liszt Square. They marvel at its beautiful forms and forgotten ornaments; they feel reassured that while the shape of the seats is unchanged, one can now enjoy a concert in more comfort.

Performers excitedly seek their old accustomed places behind the stage, but find instead more spacious, better-equipped dressing rooms. Perhaps our ears had forgotten the Grand Hall's acoustics, but it is easy to get used to them again: every reverberation of the music can be heard, even the soloist's breath. Much has been renewed but the essence is unchanged: the love of music, the respect for the shrine on Ferenc Liszt Square.

Music has returned to the shrine; concerts follow from day to day. Many have ask worriedly: where will the audiences come from? Will we be able to fill all the dynamically expanding concert venues in the capital? Our experience so far has shown that, yes, we will: people do indeed demand quality. Foreign tourists marvel at the city's new jewel, the art nouveau miracle now liberated from its recent scaffolding. And they marvel at what is happening inside. They are seeking tickets. Youngsters come up from the trendy ruin pubs of Király Street and discover a new venue.

Budapest can again win its deserved place on Europe's musical map as one of the most influential venues on the world music circuit. The Liszt Academy has always had an important role – and this has not changed.

It was from here that music's Hungarian ambassadors set out into the world and to where they returned: to use András Batta's comparison, it is like a main railway station of music.

The reader is holding in his hands the first, not quite complete, season of programmes since the reopening of the Liszt Academy. In devising them, we are not taking the easy route: we are trying to give back chamber music its status by offering performers who are a guarantee of the highest quality. Supreme Hungarian musicians and international stars of the concert podium will play together, our new talents and teachers show what they can do, and we also happily recommend our diploma concerts to you.

We are delighted that once again we can offer a venue for the city’s orchestras for their subscription series. These high-class orchestras will present a varied symphonic repertoire to delighted audiences. Our resident orchestra, the Concerto Budapest, is richly represented; they also participate in the university's teaching duties.

We look forward to greeting you at our concerts as you discover again the wonders of the Liszt Academy.

András Csonka Cultural Director of the Liszt Academy

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October 22nd is over – one might rather write that it happened, it came to pass. Since the spirit and business ethos of the event, as promised by the campaign held weeks in advance of the opening gala – "On a Global Note!"

– has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the opening was greeted with enthusiasm by the Hungarian and international press, we can state with good reason that the Liszt Academy, as so often in its time, has written history. Its scale and force is unbroken, but it has stepped into a fresh era in which the old has been strengthened, and the new is continually being born within it.

With the first issue of our Concert Magazine, we have naturally guided the reader's attention through the powerful spiritual aura of this incomparably individual and mysterious building, the embodiment of the Liszt Academy's soul in shifting chronological planes, while ensuring greater depth elsewhere with small essays by the most outstanding of “in-house writers.” We now try to do so again, this time not with eras of time – the eras of the Liszt Academy – but by playing with the thought of timelessness.

Putting aside the physical attractions of the building itself, for me the Liszt Academy appears as the most ageless embodiment of time: “Eternal and hypermodern at once...” as János Pilinszky once wrote about Bach. The essence of music, in its centre the Man itself. This is the most general and intimate scenario; from this, the associative pictures drawn from contemporary photographic art and the deeply individual diversity of sounds of the concert repertoire take their cue.

Jakob Böhme wrote in his work Holy Yearning: “Therefore there is nothing more profitable to man in this world, while he dwells in this miserable corrupted house of flesh, than learning to know himself.” The 2014 concert season offers such opportunity for immersion.

Imre Szabó Stein Editor-in-Chief Liszt Academy Director of Communications and Media Content Development

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Friday 10 January 2014 / 20.00

Saturday 11 January 2014 / 19.00

Sunday 12 January 2014 / 19.30

Grand Hall

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

“Transparent Sound” Festival Opening Concert

Ági Szalóki – Karády Recital Franciscan Charity Evening for People with Autism Ági Szalóki (vocals) Róbert Szakcsi Lakatos (piano) Gábor Juhász (guitar) Kristóf Bacsó (saxophone) Ferenc Shreck (trombone) Balázs Cseh (drums) Zoltán Kovács (double bass) “I like these declarations of love; they are simple, brave, honest and relevant even today. I find in them the kind of wise and pleasingly ironic thoughts that lie very close to my own heart.

In the person of Karády we hear the song of a woman who has lived through much. I try to identify with this. I attempt to send a message from the stage that every woman is capable of being a diva, of being a real queen, just like Karády.” These are the words of Ági Szalóki on her highly successful Karády recording, released in 2008.

Besides Karády’s popular songs, other hits of the 1940s and 50s are performed on the stage of the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy. Instrumentalisation is by Gábor Juhász and Kristóf Bacsó, and features a selection of the best jazz musicians in the country, who come together for this charity concert organized by the Franciscan Order.

Tickets: HUF 6 900, 5 600, 3 200 Organiser: Provincia Hungariae a Magna Domina Hungarorum 4

Balázs Horváth: Through a Man’s Eyes /Through a Woman’s Eyes Anahita Abbasi–Angélica Castelló– Margareta Ferek Petric–Tamara Friebel– Samu Gryllus–Mirela Ivicevic–Kami Marques–Suk Ju Na–Fernando Riederer– Simon Vosecek–Yukiko Watanabe –Ruei-Ran Wu: The Anatomy of Change – semi staged concert after 12 studies Ágnes Herczku, Theresa Dlouhy, Tomasz Piętak (vocals) THReNSeMBle Balázs Horváth (conductor) Every day we ask the question: Did you see what I saw? But surely there can only be one answer: No. After all, which person can see exactly in the same way as another? The multiplicity of personal perspectives is a recurring theme in the work of composer Balázs Horváth. In the piece Through a Man’s Eyes/Through a Woman’s Eyes, inspired by the words of great poets, this multiplicity is explored in the context of the most fundamental everyday experiences. The “truth” of not two but twelve perspectives is exposed in the composition Die Anatomie der Änderung. It is the “truth” of twelve composers living and working in Austria, who sought answers to the question as to how changes in the world impact on music, and how they present themselves in the language of music.

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organisers: MuPATh (Music Performance Art Theatre); Trafó; Fuga; Hungarian Soundpainting Orchestra; Filharmonia Hungary Ltd, Liszt Academy Concert Centre Sponsor: Austrian Cultural Forum; NKA, Arnold Schoenberg Centre (Vienna)

Song recitals AT the Liszt Academy Andrea Rost and Kálmán Oláh Songs As Never Heard Before Berg: Seven Early Songs Bartók: Eight Hungarian Folk Songs (BB 47) R. Strauss: Tomorrow! op. 27/4 R. Strauss: To my Baby, op. 37/3 Liszt: The Loreley Hungarian folk songs from the collection of Zoltán Kodály, arranged by Kálmán Oláh Andrea Rost (soprano) Kálmán Oláh (piano) Songs As Never Heard Before – the title is no empty boast: even regulars on the concert scene will hear some new songs and different approaches. How will this come about? Well, the exhilarating association between two exciting performers, Andrea Rost and Kálmán Oláh, is virtually a guarantee in itself.

Andrea Rost, who has been successful in avoiding being typecast as an opera singer, and Kálmán Oláh, who has found pleasure in wandering far from the fields of jazz, perform works by Berg, Bartók, Liszt and Richard Strauss, in addition to folk songs collected by Kodály.

Together they offer improvisations that further explore the melodies of the songs, other improvisations born from the inspiration of those same melodies, as well as more compositionally-structured works.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

LISZTACADEMY.HU

on a global note

Tuesday 14 January 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 18 January 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

László Borbély DLA doctorate-closing piano recital

Evgeni Koroliov & Concerto Budapest

J. S. Bach: The Art of Fugue (BWV 1080) – excerpts Messiaen: Visions of the Amen László Borbély, András Wilheim (piano) Juxtaposing the late masterpiece of the exceptionally rational genius of 18th century German Lutheran church music with a composition by a 20th century, bird-loving, Hawaiian-shirtwearing mystically Catholic French composer is, if nothing else, a thoughtprovoking gesture. However, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Olivier Messiaen do sit surprisingly well side by side, since both evince a structural thought pattern, the desire for transcendence and a religious commitment. László Borbély, who is just completing the Liszt Academy doctoral school having written his dissertation on the music of Messiaen, is considered one of the finest pianists of his generation, a dedicated interpreter of 20th century and contemporary music, and a representative of the noble tradition of reflective, thoughtful performers.

András Wilheim, who is active both as a musicologist and pianist, will be his partner on this occasion.

Free tickets for the concert can be obtained from the ticket office of the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 6

J. S. Bach: Piano Concerto in D minor (BWV 1052) Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor (K. 491) Beethoven: String Quartet in C sharp minor, op. 131 (for chamber orchestra) Evgeni Koroliov (piano) Concerto Budapest András Keller (conductor) Russian pianist Evgeni Koroliov, considered to be among the most talented Bach interpreters of our day, begins the concert with Bach’s keyboard concerto in D minor, which is thought to be based on a now-lost violin concerto. The significance of his Bach playing is perhaps best illustrated by recalling György Ligeti’s comment that he would take one of Koroliov’s Bach recordings with him if Ligeti ever found himself stranded on a desert island. The audience will also be able to listen to another piano concerto with solo by the 64-year-old Koroliov in the form of the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor (1785) by Mozart. The concert winds up with one of the most wonderful late string quartets of Beethoven, the String Quartet in C sharp minor completed in 1826, this time arranged for a chamber orchestra. Legend has it that Franz Schubert, on hearing the seven-movement work, turned to his musician colleagues and asked: “After this, what is left for us to write?”

Tickets: HUF 6 700, 4 700, 3 200 Organiser: Concerto Budapest

BRASIL, Salvador © zoltán Molnár

Sunday 19 January 2014 / 11.00

Sunday 19 January 2014 / 19.30

Tuesday 21 January 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra The Empire of Pleasure and Torment R. Strauss: Don Juan, op. 20

The King's Singers – Great American Songbook

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Lecturer and conductor: Gábor Hollerung Can music be understood? The question is certainly an old one – and remains all the more difficult to answer for its antiquity. One thing for sure is that no solution can be found without a listening public that is both interested and open to embrace the new. Thus the extraordinary success of the familyfriendly series Understandable Music by the Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok is very encouraging indeed. Conductor Gábor Hollerung is a born storyteller; his commentaries provide true insight and yet always remain comprehensible and enjoyable for young and old alike.

This concert by the Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok takes a close look at a romantic version of the Trickster of Seville’s eternal story. The symphonic poem Don Juan, which reformulates the fragments of Nikolaus Lenau’s drama in the language of music, is a masterpiece from the 24-year-old Richard Strauss: it is infinitely intensive music that opens the door onto the empire of pleasure and torment.

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 1 800, 1 200 Organiser: Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra 8

Songs by Bernstein, Arlen, Gershwin, Porter, Copland and Berlin The King’s Singers Győr Philharmonic Orchestra Márton Rácz (conductor)

Details on page 6

The concert by The King’s Singers of works from Great American Songbook provides many familiar tunes, starting with the title music to The Magnificent Seven through Cheek to Cheek, Fred Astaire’s hit, all the way to marvellous Gershwin melodies. The concert tour of the ensemble’s album, which was released in October, arrives in Budapest with exemplary promptness. There can be no doubt of the magnificent virtuosity of the arrangements and of the ensemble’s performance method. The King’s Singers are fortunate to have had Alexander L'Estrange tailor the transcriptions to the unique characteristics of the ensemble. “If you had to create from scratch the perfect 21st century musician, Alexander L’Estrange would be your template,” wrote one British critic.

Tickets: HUF 6 700, 4 700, 3 200 Organiser: Concerto Budapest

Tickets: HUF 8 900, 6 900, 5 900 Organiser: Győr Philharmonic Orchestra

Evgeni Koroliov & Concerto Budapest J. S. Bach: Piano Concerto in D minor (BWV 1052) Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor (K. 491) Beethoven: String Quartet in C sharp minor, op. 131 (for chamber orchestra) Evgeni Koroliov (piano) Concerto Budapest András Keller (conductor)

Wednesday 22 January 2014 / 19.00 Thursday 23 January 2014 / 19.00

Thursday 23 January 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

Opera Exam Festival The Don Juan Project Liszt Academy Vocalists: Éva Bernáth, Imai Ayane, Makiko Yoshida (soprano); Orsolya Gheorghita, Klára Vincze (mezzo-soprano) Composers: Mozart, Ádám Baqais, Bence Kutrik, Bálint Laczkó, Bence Pintér, Árpád Solti Concerto Budapest Conductor: Ádám Cser Director: András Almási-Tóth Higher educational music institutions of four cities (Budapest, Zagreb, Stockholm, and Florence) take part in the international Opera Exam Festival.

The opening performance is staged by the Opera Department of the Liszt Academy, headed by András AlmásiTóth. The student production is set in the future, although its music is taken from the past and present. The plot takes us to the year 2034, to a time when women doctors are attempting to create the perfect man from the DNA of their own lovers and husbands. Each of the eight scenes is built on a Mozart aria, to which students of the Composition Department have written a commentary.

In the course of the performance we find out whether the creation of a perfect man is successful or not. The music of Mozart and his young colleagues is, however, perfect; it is performed by students of the Department of Vocal Studies, accompanied by Concerto Budapest under the baton of Ádám Cser.

Free tickets for the concert can be obtained from the ticket office of the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 10

Chanticleer: She said/He said Works by Victoria, Willaert, Janequin, A. Gabrieli, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Ravel, Whitacre, Garrop, Porter and Mitchell Chanticleer: Gregory Peebles, Kory Reid, Darita Seth (soprano); Cortez Mitchell, Alan Reinhardt, Adam Ward (alto); Michael Bresnahan, Brian Hinman, Ben Jones (tenor); Eric Alatorre, Matthew Knickman, Marques Jerrell Ruff (baritone and bass) Based in San Francisco, this Californian vocal ensemble is a regular and popular guest on the concert scene in Budapest: twelve cheerful men, masters of a cappella singing. The name they chose was taken from the singing cockerel in The Canterbury Tales

by Chaucer. This themed concert covers all the stations – from sweet dalliance to heated dispute – of a millennium of interaction between the two sexes.

She said/He said is a dialogue stretching from Renaissance madrigals to Cole Porter and Maurice Ravel: variations on an eternal theme. The particular feature of the compilation is that the female principle – the female message – is conveyed by works of a few female composers of exceptional talent to an audience of both sexes.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Chanticleer © Lisa kohler

The Singing City The Kodály legacy: blessing or burden? Certainly as far as choral culture is concerned, it is not the only road to salvation: splendid results have been created – and continue to be created – in other parts of the world, and not necessarily in the realm of high culture. Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, to mention a few places outside Europe, also boast marvellous choirs. And recently, a unique American initiative has motivated tens of thousands who just love singing. This remarkable enterprise is associated with the name of Eric Whitacre, the American choir conductor and composer, who wanted to be a rock star in his youth and still looks like one. With his Virtual Choir project he has made history. The gist is that anyone from anywhere in the world can participate in a “joint” performance of a Whitacre choral work. All you have to do is follow the online instructions, choose a vocal part that is comfortable for your voice, record it on video and upload it to the composer's home page. Then after post-production work, the completed video is uploaded, with edited images and sound, to YouTube.

This year's Virtual Choir 4 is the fourth in this series of virtual choral projects.

In this five-minute video clip it is almost as though we were watching Kodály's dream come true: in every window of every building and skyscraper we see a person; the whole city is singing. The creation was premiered last July as part of the celebrations of the sixtieth anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London. After two months the video had attracted nearly half a million hits on Whitacre's official YouTube channel. Last year's project has so far reached an audience of eight hundred thousand, and the clip made three years ago has had four million hits.

The success of the venture owes as much to the approach as to Whitacre himself, an approach which regards choral music not as abstract art in which the principal role belongs to the singer and the act of singing with others, even if only virtually. In his invitation to participate, Whitacre emphasises, “if you have any questions, please write and we will answer and help; if you have never sung before or are uncertain about your voice, you can download help material, indeed you can communicate through the computer with other participants wherever you live on Earth.”

From a breakdown of the published statistics, we can see that nineteen Hungarian musical friends participated in the project. On the other hand, by far the largest number, nearly four thousand people, uploaded videos from the United States. Is it possible that they are less influenced by the paralysing influence of traditions? Perhaps they think that classical music is not synonymous with “serious” music and that “light” music can be serious if it offers the right experience. In programmes by American choruses, be they amateur university choirs or professional male choirs (for example, Chanticleer), they appear happy to juxtapose Renaissance polyphony, contemporary music and pop settings. Let there be no boundaries; let us just sing! Jointly. Together. Let music belong to everyone!

Tamás Várkonyi 11

Friday 24 January 2014 / 17.00

Friday 24 January 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Opera Exam Festival Sing the Body Electric!

– A corporatorio University College of Opera, Stockholm Concept, music and text compilation: Carl Unander-Scharin Director, choreographer: Åsa Unander-Scharin Music: Händel, Monteverdi, Purcell Text: Albert Einstein, Walt Whitman, William Blake Performers: Emilia Feldt (soprano); Annika Hudak (alto); Annastina Malm, Erika Tordéus (mezzo-soprano) Technology: Ludvig Elblaus, Carl UnanderScharin, Åsa Unander-Scharin Costumes: Mats Lindberg Makeup: Gunilla Pettersson Production: Jimmy Svensson Producer: Marit Wixell “I sing the body electric” is the first line of a visionary poem by Walt Whitman.

It has also been chosen as the title of the exam concert of the University College of Opera, Stockholm. Carl Unander-Scharin, who participates as both composer and tenor, and his choreographer wife Åsa Unander-Scharin have created numerous joint productions: in June 2013 they first revealed this multi-genre performance, which can now be seen in the Solti Hall of the Liszt Academy as part of the Opera Exam Festival. The piece celebrates that special ability of man to change the world around him, by bringing together the music of Händel, Monteverdi and Purcell with the writings of Einstein, Whitman and William Blake. The motto of the performance is taken from Blake: “Energy is eternal delight”.

Free tickets for the concert can be obtained from the ticket office of the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 12

Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Hommage à Petrovics Emil Petrovics: Symphony No. 1, op. 13 Petrovics: Piano Concert, op. 16 Petrovics: The Paul Street Boys (excerpts from the film music Balázs Fülei (piano) Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Domonkos Héja (conductor) Known to millions in Hungary as a regular member of the panel on TV talent show Ki mit tud?, Emil Petrovics – erstwhile legendary teacher at the Liszt Academy – was perhaps the most active composer of his time, with a whole raft of film music and operas, ballets and oratorios, cantatas and, of course, orchestral and chamber works to his name. This significant memorial concert featuring Domonkos Héja and his ensemble, the Danubia Orchestra Óbuda (now in their 30th year), reveals the astounding diversity of Petrovics’s oeuvre and his consistently listenerfriendly, inclusive nature. During the evening we will hear excerpts from his 1968 film music for A Pál utcai fiúk (The Paul Street Boys, directed by Zoltán Fábri), together with two emblematic Petrovics compositions from two important eras in his career: Symphony No. 1 (1964) and his Piano Concerto written at the end of the millennium, in 1999.

Tickets: HUF 3 100, 2 400, 1 700, 1 000 Organiser: Óbudai Danubia Nonprofit Ltd.

domonkos Héja

Saturday 25 January 2014 / 15.30

GRAND HALL

Zoltán Kocsis & Zugló Philharmonics Budapest Bartók: Twenty Hungarian Folksongs (BB 98 – arrangement by Zoltán Kocsis) Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125 Ildikó Szakács (soprano); Bernadett Wiedemann (alto); István Horváth (tenor); András Palerdi (bass) Zugló Philharmonics Budapest – Szent István Király Symphony Orchestra & Oratorio Chorus Zoltán Kocsis (conductor) Zoltán Kocsis, the conductor and Zoltán Kocsis, the arranger – this concert brings us closer to these two aspects of this most remarkable of Hungarian music personalities.

Béla Bartók himself arranged for an orchestra five movements of his 1929 series Twenty Hungarian Folksongs, originally with piano accompaniment, just a few years after they were completed; Zoltán Kocsis added instrumentation for a full orchestra to provide enlightening power. This is followed by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, probably the most respected and analyzed creative work in Western music culture. “It is amazing that the work has not been buried under the mass of prose it has provoked,” wrote Claude Debussy when marvelling at the reams of explanatory and interpretative papers written on the subject of the Beethoven symphony, and of course the unblemished magnificence of “the Ninth”.

Tickets: HUF 2 100, 1 800, 1 500 Organiser: Zugló Philharmonics Budapest

Saturday 25 January 2014 / 19.00

Solti Hall

Sunday 26 January 2014 / 19.00

Solti Hall

Opera Exam Festival The Soldier’s Tale Zagreb Academy of Music Opera Exam Festival Dido and Aeneas Cherubini Conservatory, Florence Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (arrangement by Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst) Dido, Queen of Carthage: Elena Tereshchenko Aeneas, Trojan prince: Matteo Michi Belinda, Dido’s handmaid: Stefanica Dorina Baitan Second woman: Elmas Zeynep Mehmet Sorceress: Antonia Fino First witch: Clarissa Toti Second witch: Isabella Messinese Spirit: Adina Vilichi First sailor: Edoardo Ballerini

Narrator: Filip Riđički Soldier: Nikola Baće Devil: Dajana Čuljak Princess: Milica Manojlović Đana Kahriman (violin); Ivan Domović (double bass); Dunja Paprić (clarinet); Žarko Perišić (bassoon); Mario Lončar (trumpet); Ivan Mučić (trombone); Boris Žuvela (percussion) Conductor: Mladen Tarbuk Director: Borna Baletić Consultant of the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts: Robert Šimrak Consultant of the Zagreb Academy of Music: Goran Merčep

One of the greatest (and shortest) works in the history of opera, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, was premiered at a school for girls in London in the 1680s. The tragic love story of the Trojan hero and the Queen of Carthage, the third production in the Opera Exam Festival organized by the Liszt Academy, is performed by students of the opera faculty of the Cherubini Conservatory, Florence.

This joint production of Zagreb’s Academy of Dramatic Art, Academy of Fine Arts and the Music Academy comes to the Opera Exam Festival organized by the Budapest Liszt Academy. Stravinsky’s classic set in the First World War, The Soldier’s Tale, is a true cross-arts production, here performed by artists from Zagreb. It tells the tale of the soldier who sells his soul to the devil. The performance raises questions as to what counts as success in today’s society, about whether our goals are achievable, and whether we are able to conquer our own ambitions. Virtuoso acting is allied to the virtuoso playing of some extremely testing instrumental parts, in order to truly bring to life this thought-provoking and entertaining Faustian story.

Free tickets for the concert can be obtained from the ticket office of the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Free tickets for the concert can be obtained from the ticket office of the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Director and costume designer: Francesco Torrigiani String orchestra and chorus of the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory Conductor and harpsichord: Umberto Cerini

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Without Frills An examination in which the students give an account of their development and abilities on stage. A course culminating in a public performance in which – together with the rehearsal period – the opera singer students acquire essential experience: they practise performing to an audience, “on the spot”, in theatrical circumstances. This is the educational objective. For the watchers, however, the opera exam is a true music theatre treat.

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Each exam performance is a fantastic theatrical opportunity for young singers to bring opera to life with their own unique energy. Perhaps not always with “maturity”, perhaps sometimes with mistakes and uncertainties, but this is more than compensated by the freshness of youth, by the daring – perhaps even impudence – of being able to shape each role to their own personality. In the professional opera house, we can rarely see so many sincere gestures, utterances and activity at the same time. Most works in opera history are about very young people. We tend to forget this because of the difficulties of the parts: a singer “has to mature” for each role and this very often only happens somewhat later than the age of the character being depicted. The greatest virtue of the opera exams is that they are able to return to a “virgin” reading of works: the young performers are indeed young, the relationships between them reflect this; there is no deceit, no need to create illusions; the performers can put on their faces without make-up and wigs.

Opera exams open up new dimensions not just in the interpretation of well-known works but in rediscovering forgotten pieces or in putting new works on the stage. There are no pressures from producers or the need to sell the performance; they can experiment bravely, undertaking risky premieres; there is no “production line” feeling, no double roles, no stepping in at the last moment, no restrictions other than that students should develop and learn from it. They are granted unbelievable freedom in the selection of theme and work, and in their realisation. Opera exams are capable of giving back opera's primeval pure form to the audience, where the joy of play and discovery is the only guiding principal.

Contemporary opera performance places demands on the singers which are no different from the performance culture required of prose actors. They have to perform openly, freely and sincerely, even in different directorial concepts, always with personal presence, by stripping the individual almost bare. The aim of opera exams is not the nurturing of tradition and the traditional approach to familiar operatic roles, because the work here is simply the pretext to enable the theatrical personalities of the students to develop. They do not have to learn forms, or how to be sad or to be in love on stage, or what gestures must be employed in a given situation, rather how to be natural in the abstract genre of being on stage. There is no compulsory homework; they do not have to adhere to the familiar and accepted roles in performance traditions. The most gratifying roles are the ones which have no performing traditions, so there is no need to conform to any audience expectations: the students have to build the role for themselves in the first person singular.

In recent years the Liszt Academy opera exams have truly exploited the opportunities this special occasion has to offer. We have premiered rarely played works (Gazzaniga: Don Giovanni, Bellini: I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Gluck: Armida, Purcell: The Fairy Queen), or “rethought” older works with the aid of contemporary composers (Cavalli: La Callisto, orchestrated by twenty-two young composers; and the same will happen again this year with The Don Juan Project), or we have commissioned operas written

specially for the opera faculty students (Máté Bella: The Awakening of Spring, Árpád Solti: La Violetta; and this year again there will be the year-ending Opera Sketches production). Fortunately, we have nurtured an excellent relationship with the composition faculty led by Gyula Fekete.

The collaboration between the two faculties has been fruitful for both composition and opera faculty students, because together they can explore their capabilities in practice: as contemporaries they understand each other, they think the same way about the world. From a teaching perspective, these new operas are exceptionally useful as they encourage students to learn all the elements of the opera singer's trade, performing without frills, clichés and preconceptions. The freedom of creation is truly liberating.

It returns us to the belle époque of opera, to the collaboration between composers and singers, to parts written for particular personalities. It is also important for youngsters to know and love the music of their own time, to find possibilities to express their own problems in opera. For the audience, these events offer the opportunity to admire new works.

This year there is a novelty attached to the opera exam, one which we hope will become a tradition: with the support of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, we have organised an opera exam festival with some foreign arts universities. We enjoy a fruitful relationship with numerous universities – we regularly hold joint workshops and masterclasses – and since these institutions have a similar attitude to opera exams to our own, we should like each year to present the freshest productions in the renovated György Solti Chamber Hall. You can see some very interesting productions this year: from Stockholm an electronic opera performance that explores the limits of opera using the most modern techniques; from Florence a fresh reinterpretation of Purcell's milestone work Dido and Aeneas; and a Stravinsky production from Zagrab which conforms to the composer's original intention of stretching the boundaries of musical theatre. They are joined by our own examination performances in which Mozart meets contemporary music in a “never seen before” (because it does not exist!)

Mozart opera premiere built from concert arias. The real value of the festival is that these young singers can meet one another and exchange experiences.

Young people, full of energy and unspoiled in the theatrical sense.

Routine, “implementation”, just getting through it – these are all unknown to them. The opera exam is an exceptional genre. We can only see such performances here.

András Almási-Tóth

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Antal Doráti (1987) © zoltán Szalay

JÁNOS FERENCSIK (1983) © Gábor Fejér 16

annie Fischer (1984) © Gábor Fejér

Keith Jarrett (1989) © András Bánkuti

MiKhail PLETNEV and Gábor Takács-Nagy (2013) © Eszter Gordon/BFZ 17

Sunday 26 January 2014 / 19.30

Tuesday 28 January 2014 / 19.30

Thursday 30 January 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Chamber music – Tuned for Grand Hall Evgeni Koroliov & Keller Quartet Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34 Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G minor, op. 57 Evgeni Koroliov (piano) Keller Quartet: András Keller, Zsófia Környei (violin); Zoltán Gál (viola); Judit Szabó (cello)

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Black and White Colours Gergely Bogányi AT the Liszt Academy II Liszt: Angelus Liszt: Funeral March Liszt: The Fountains of the Villa d’Este Liszt: Sursum corda Bartók: Sonata (BB 88) Schumann: Carnival, op. 9

Noted for his enthralling personality, Evgeni Koroliov not so much interprets musical works as recreates them. His approach is of characteristic simplicity, free of frills and any kind of musical heavy-handedness. This is not his first Budapest appearance; however, this time he performs with the Keller Quartet, which within the first three years of their formation in 1987 imperiously won the world’s two most prestigious string quartet competitions and toured all the great concert halls. On top of that, András Keller, first violinist of his eponymous ensemble, has led the chamber music course of the Liszt Academy for a year. The programme features Brahm’s masterwork, originally planned for a string quintet and which is inspired by Schumann. This is followed by the sombre Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor, composed in 1940 and which continues a dialogue with the music of Bach.

The keys of a piano come in two colours: there are many white keys, and somewhat fewer black. However, the colours of music written for the piano are not defined by these two tones, particularly not in the case of composers such as Schumann, Liszt or Bartók, and even less so when interpreted by artists such as Gergely Bogányi. Under his fingers even the meditative and monochromatic compositions dazzle in a thousand colours, like Liszt’s “modernist” movements in his final volume of The Years of Pilgrimage. Liszt’s later style was particularly inspiring for Béla Bartók; this programme not only reveals the Liszt-Bartók relationship but makes it come alive. And as to which secret (and not so confidential) relationships between different people and composers can be discovered, well Schumann’s kaleidoscope Carnival provides answers.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 6 500, 5 400, 3 800 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Gergely Bogányi (piano)

Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Pergolesi: Stabat Mater Beethoven: Septet in E flat major, op. 20 Andrea Csereklyei (soprano), Lúcia Megyesi Schwartz (alto) Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Artistic director: János Rolla “Right back in the early days we were final year students at the Liszt Academy and we got together to play music under the leadership of our professor Frigyes Sándor,” says János Rolla, reminiscing about the formation of the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, who mark their 50th anniversary in 2013. Now they return to their alma mater with one of the most popular vocal works of church music, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and Beethoven’s 1799 Septet. Rousseau described the opening bars of the Pergolesi work to be “the most perfect and most touching to have come from the pen of any musician.” Singers Andrea Csereklyei and Lúcia Megyesi Schwartz begin this work of twelve movements. Beethoven wrote thus about his six-movement composition dedicated to the (second) consort of Emperor Francis: “… for I cannot write anything that is not obligato, having come into the world with obligato accompaniment.”

Tickets: HUF 8 000, 6 500, 5 000, 3 500 Organiser: Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

The Pianist of an Uninhabited Island I heard him for the first time in Paris. He played Bach's last, unfinished masterpiece The Art of Fugue. It is an unplayable piece. Not technically but in the intellectual sense. An East European civil servant came out on stage, dressed in a grey suite, with large, framed glasses, bowed clumsily, sat down at the piano and played the whole work. There was not a single theatrical gesture or superfluous movement, as if nothing could be more natural than this. It hardly needs stating that he played from memory. And he played perfectly. Evgeni Koroliov's Bach performance was a revelation – and not just for me. When György Ligeti heard his recording of The Art of Fugue, he said the following: “If I could take with me a single piece of music to an uninhabited island, it would be Koroliov's Bach recording, because I would listen to it in the midst of starvation and deadly thirst, until my final breath.”

One of Koroliov's most influential Bach experiences was hearing Glenn Gould playing in Moscow in 1957 when the Russian was only eight. If there are pianists whose analytical approach can be measured against Gould's, then Koroliov is definitely one of them; at the same time, he is quite free from Gould's iconoclastic allure. He was a student of Lev Oborin at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire but also took lessons with Maria Yudina and Heinrich Neuhaus. In 1976 he moved to Yugoslavia with his Macedonian wife, then emigrated to the West, and since 1978 has taught piano at the Hamburg Music College (where György Ligeti was one of his colleagues).

For Koroliov, teaching and concert performing are equally important.

“It is a very important thing to discuss musical questions with talented youngsters,” he said in an interview. He does not teach as though he is an infallible authority; rather, he regards his students as partners. Indeed, he does not think he knows everything. But he knows magnitudes more about music than numerous contemporaries who have enjoyed international careers as star virtuosi. Koroliov is not interested in the instrument but in what the instrument says. And in anything which can be interpreted as music.

The medieval art of Ars Nova or 20th century and contemporary music is more important to him than the 19th century piano repertoire that has been played to death. And he is a dedicated chamber musician: he has performed with Natalia Gutman, Mischa Maisky and the Keller Quartet, and regularly gives duet and two-piano recitals with his wife, Ljupka Hadzi-Georgieva.

As for the audience, Koroliov has said this about us: “For me the most important question is how I relate to the given work that I am playing. That demands tremendous concentration and spiritual energy. I don't have time to flirt with the audience to tease out their desires. I know that many artists do this and I have no problem with it. But I am simply different. In the end, I hope the audience is grateful for my labours.” As for gratitude, I am not just grateful to him for that experience in Paris, but to fate as well!

Evgeni Koroliov © Stephan Wallocha

Gergely Fazekas 19

Friday 31 January 2014 / 19.00

Friday 31 January 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 1 February 2014 / 19.00

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

Solti Hall

Acoustic, Authentic Poros Orchestra Music, Family – a Revival Musicians’ Dynasty

MÁV Symphony Orchestra Wagner: Tristan and Isolde – Prelude; Love-Death of Isolde Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D major (“Titan”) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Péter Csaba (conductor) Born in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), Péter Csaba is a familiar figure in Swedish and French musical life, and has also conducted the MÁV Symphony Orchestra for more than a year. This time he evokes the characteristic music of high Romanticism with two of the most important parts of the Wagner epic Tristan and Isolde, which with its opening chords came to define an entire era. In the second half of the concert, the first symphony of perhaps the most significant conductor of Wagner’s works of all time is performed. This masterpiece by the youthful Gustav Mahler – the premiere of which was staged in the Vigadó Theatre, Budapest, in 1889 – sums up the entire Mahler oeuvre: the nature music of the first movement, the rusticintellectual dance of the second, and the slow, corrosive irony and klezmer keynotes in the Wagnerian closing movement are all reflected in numerous later pieces by Mahler.

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: MÁV Symphony Orchestra 20

Jazz It! Pozsár Máté Quartet featuring Kristóf Bacsó Avant-garde and Free Jazz

László Porteleki (violin); Áron Porteleki (viola); Gergő Szabó Csobán (double bass)

27-year-old Máté Pozsár from Csongrád has deservedly won the chance to open the teacher-student concert series organized in the Solti Hall of the Liszt Academy on 31 January. The pianist, who graduated from the master’s degree course of the jazz department only last year, has already notched up an impressive series of achievements.

He has recorded with György Kurtág Jr., regularly performs in concert with István Grencsó, has published a book on musical theory in partnership with Károly Binder, and last but not least in 2011 won the first ever Creative Art Prize founded by György Vukán and given to the pianist with the best improvisational technique. Saxophonist Kristóf Bacsó, who recently joined the university teaching staff, accompanies the quartet.

Forty years after the start of the dance house movement we can confidently state that the concept of revival from generation to generation is viable and more than a match for passing fads.

The Poros Orchestra is an excellent example of two generations of the same family taking their first steps on the bumpy road of founding a musicians’ dynasty. We know the orchestra’s leader László Porteleki from Muzsikás Ensemble – he has been a member of this, one of Hungary’s most popular and internationally recognized formations, for the last 15 years – while the second generation is represented by Áron, László’s son. The Poros Orchestra debuted in 2009, and the title of their club Kezdjük újra (“Let’s Start Again”) sums up their ars poetica.

The 40-year-old dance house movement and rediscovered folk dance have generated so many new directions that perhaps it is time to look again at the original objectives. What will this evening bring? Well, you can expect authentic folk music in the footsteps of old musicians’ dynasties.

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Máté Pozsár (piano) Ádám Meggyes (trumpet) Ernő Hock (bass) Szilveszter Miklós (drums) Guest: Kristóf Bacsó (saxophone)

Saturday 1 February 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 2 February 2014 / 11.00

Tuesday 4 February 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra

Liszt Kidz Academy Music and Maths For 10–15-year-olds

Gyula Fekete: Excelsior!

R. Strauss: Don Juan Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C major (D. 944) Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Roberto Paternostro (conductor)

Medieval organums, works by Dufay, Cicconia, Tallis and J. S. Bach Discantus Vocal Ensemble Conductor and narrator: Péter Mészáros

The concert hall version of Gyula Fekete’s opera about Liszt (Excelsior!) is a magnificent distillation of the original work. As one critic put it, the suite “is the projection of the dramatic curve of the original piece, in the penultimate stage of which Liszt’s prayer is heard, and the conclusion reaches its climax in a dazzling apotheosis, which appears surreal from our earthly perspective. There is a very apparent lack of supporting actors, namely, the pontiff, the cardinal, Princess Carolyne, Cosima and Wagner”.

Nonetheless, Wagner will be present at the Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra concert, albeit indirectly, in the manifestation of guest conductor for the recital, Roberto Paternostro from Vienna. A former student of Hans Swarowsky, György Ligeti and Christoph von Dohnányi, and assistant in Berlin to Herbert von Karajan, Paternostro has in recent times been the close colleague of the great-granddaughter of Wagner, Katharina Wagner, who is herself famous for her groundbreaking stage direction.

Amongst schoolchildren there are always a number who are into maths, some literature buffs, and some budding historians. Of course, these various subcultures are not totally isolated from one another, and when it comes to music crossing between them is especially easy. As music has a connection to everything, it reveals as much about maths as it does about literature, art or sport. The Liszt Kidz Academy, our very own youth series here at the Liszt Academy, first explores music’s most important fellow science, mathematics. What sort of ratios does music operate to? How can the architectural solution to the Duomo in Florence be displayed in music?

What mathematical riddles are locked in various works of music and how can we break their codes? This concert for 10-15-year-old students seeks answers to these and similar questions. Péter Mészáros, hugely talented both as a teacher and conductor, will conduct and narrate, leading his own chorus, Discantus Vocal Ensemble, winners of numerous international competitions.

Tickets: HUF 4 500, 3 900, 3 200 Organiser: Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Beyond Music...

Tamás Vásáry Musical Conversations IV/3 Works of Antonín Dvořák Symphony Orchestra of the Hungarian Radio Lecturer, conductor and piano: Tamás Vásáry Though his father was both a humble butcher and innkeeper, by his fiftieth birthday Antonín Dvořák had become a true music celebrity able to write proudly in a letter that: “The Americans expect great things of me. I am to show them the way into the Promised Land, the realm of a new, independent art – in short, a national style of music!”

The composer, who successfully transplanted Slav melodies and the atmosphere of Czech forests and meadows into the New World, is the third hero and subject of Tamás Vásáry’s Musical Conversations. Tamás Vásáry, who always approaches works with the power of personality, subjectivity, and at the same time profound knowledge, leads us into a world of music close to his and his audience’s heart. What’s more, we glimpse the likeable person behind these great works, a person who was not only one of the most significant composers of his age but was also a devoted fan of trains throughout his life.

Tickets: HUF 3 500, 2 800, 2 000, 1 500 Student and concession tickets: HUF 2 500, 2 000, 1 400, 1 000 Organiser: Hungarian Radio Music Ensembles 21

Wednesday 5 February 2014 / 19.30

Thursday 6 February 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Friday 7 February 2014 / 19.45 Saturday 8 February 2014 / 19.45 Sunday 9 February 2014 / 15.30 Monday 10 February 2014 / 19.45

GRAND HALL Verdi: Requiem In Memory of Gábor Ugrin Giuseppe Verdi: Requiem

Chamber Music – Tuned for Grand Hall Ádám Banda, Miklós Perényi, Balázs Szokolay Haydn: Piano Trio in D major (Hob. XV:7) Beethoven: Piano Trio in G major, op. 1/2 Schubert: Trio in E flat major (D. 929) Ádám Banda (violin) Miklós Perényi (cello) Balázs Szokolay (piano) Three wonderful musicians dedicated to chamber music from three generations – Ádám Banda, Miklós Perényi and Balázs Szokolay – together offer the audience of this chamber recital a special experience that reveals the wealth and strength of tradition. Three main actors in the life of the Liszt Academy appear together on the stage of the Grand Hall: Miklós Perényi, the wunderkind student who gave his first concert at the age of nine, who subsequently attended the Liszt Academy as a student and has since taught here for 40 years; Balázs Szokolay, who has also been linked to his alma mater for a number of decades; and 27-year-old Ádám Banda, winner of a string of major international violin competitions.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 22

Tünde Szabóki (soprano) Erika Gál (alto) Attila Fekete (tenor) Krisztián Cser (bass); Choir of Jeunesses Musicales Hungary (choir master: Csaba Tóth, Viktor Magyaróvári); Liszt Choir of the Vigyázó Sándor Cultural House (choir master: Zsuzsa Menyhártné Barna); ProFun Choir (choir master: Katalin Énekes) Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Domonkos Héja (conductor) “The power, the drive of Professor Ugrin, his uncompromising ruthlessness placed into the service of music, left an indelible impression on all who joined him at any period of his life, in any of his choruses. Many found in this outspoken and, at one and the same time, blunt and movingly sensitive person a leader who revealed to them the true meaning of life through music.

He was the teacher of many and will remain so while we live, because everything he gave us still echoes to this day. Now, with regards the physical universe, we are forced to bid him farewell; yet his spirit burns as brightly as ever in our memories.” Thus states András Batta former president of Liszt Academy in evocation of the legendary Professor Ugrin. Here his former students pay their own tribute with a performance of Verdi’s Requiem.

Tickets: HUF 1 500 Organiser: Foundation of Jeunesses Musciales Hungary

Pinchas Zukerman & Budapest Festival Orchestra Vivaldi: Concerto for Violin and Cello in B flat major (RV 547) Bruch: Canzone, op. 55 Bruch: Adagio, op. 56 Mozart: Haffner Serenade (K 250) Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A major, op. 90 (“Italian”) Amanda Forsyth (cello) Budapest Festival Orchestra Pinchas Zukerman (conductor and violin) Pinchas Zukerman is one of the most celebrated string musicians of our age, and a brilliant conductor too. Hungarian audiences have had several chances to enjoy his virtuoso and intimate violin playing, though he has appeared here as conductor only rarely. However, this time the 65-year-old musician will step in front of a Budapest audience leading the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

The programme runs from Vivaldi to Mendelssohn; in the opening number, Vivaldi’s Concerto in B flat major, Zukerman’s wife, cellist Amanda Forsyth, will play the solo. The concert includes two works by the master of German Romanticism, Max Bruch: Canzone and Adagio on Celtic themes, both from the late 19th century. In both pieces the cello is given a virtuoso solo role.

Tickets: HUF 13 000, 8 000, 5 700, 4 400 Organiser: Budapest Festival Orchestra

Urban flasher Š Lilla Liszkay & Dorka Taskovics

From Violin Bow to Tennis Racket Globetrotting violinist Pinchas Zukerman is a regular guest in Budapest, but to date he has not performed at the Liszt Academy.

And yet Pinchas Zukerman is connected to the Academy by numerous strands and may almost be regarded, indirectly, as one of its students.

Pinchas Zukerman © Paul Labelle 24

At first he was taught by his violinist father, but then he became a student of Hungarian Ilona Fehér at the Tel Aviv Music Academy, which was largely established by Hungarian emigrants. Fehér graduated from Jenő Hubay's class and has lived in Israel since 1949, giving up her career as a soloist.

She instilled the basics of the legendary Hungarian violin school into her students, including Shlomo Mintz and the young Zukerman. When Zukerman turned twelve, Pablo Casals and Isaac Stern took notice of him during one of their tours and when with their encouragement he entered the Juilliard School in 1962. In New York Zukerman became a true American: his good looks which put Hollywood actors to shame, his joyous gestures and wide smile, and of course his violin playing unmistakably stamped him as a product of the New World. But beneath his “very American” exterior, there was concealed the true key to his success: as the master violin maker Tamás Guminár encapsulated, he embodied “all the traditions of the Hungarian, French, Russian and Jewish violin schools of the past.”

The star violinist is now sixty-five and his recordings have been nominated for Grammy prizes on twenty-one occasions. However in his twenties, Zukerman became a little bored with just being a soloist and seriously considered becoming a professional tennis player. He always took an old style wooden racket in his violin case and wherever he performed in the world, he would be sure to drive from the airport straight to the nearest tennis club, and then rush back to the court after rehearsals.

In 1993 he began teaching at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, and as he was constantly engaged across the world as both soloist and conductor, became a pioneer in the trend for internet-based distance teaching in music. In 1998 he accepted the post of leader of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra, and in Ottawa launched some wide-ranging teaching programmes. This is where he met his third wife, some twenty years his junior, Amanda Forsyth. The charming cellist happened to be the leader of the cello section of the orchestra and a member of the Zukerman Chamber Players which her husband founded in 2002.

So, February 2014 will be the first time Pinchas Zukerman has performed at the Liszt Academy. From his perspective, it is the venue that provides the novelty. For the Budapest audience, they will have the privilege of experiencing all facets of this well-travelled musician: on this occasion Zukerman will be playing the violin, performing chamber music and conducting. And to top it all, maybe he will be holding improvised masterclasses during rehearsals– as he has done before – for the luckiest talents of the Liszt Academy. At least, as long as he isn't seduced away to play a game of tennis!

Dániel Végh

napi gazdaság www.napigazdasag.hu

Napi Gazdaság is a committed supporter of the arts Napi Gazdaság – where news means business

Saturday 8 February 2014 / 10.30 & 15.00

Saturday 8 February 2014 / 22.00

Monday 10 February 2014 / 19.00

Solti Hall

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Liszt Reflections Piano Duo Recital by the Korean Liszt Society

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds Story-telling Music/2 Musical Bells

Sándor Jávorkai (violin) MÁV Symphony Orchestra; National Choir Mátyás Antal (conductor) Host: Gábor Eckhardt

Orsolya Sáfár, Andrea Puja (soprano); József Mukk (tenor); András Palerdi (bass) Orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera Conductor: Péter Oberfrank Hungarian text: Gergely Litkai Stage scenery and costumes: Róbert Menzel Director: János Szarka

Every child is enthralled by the tinkling, jangling and clanging sounds of bells of all sizes. The youth concert of Filharmónia Hungary explores a magical, chime-filled world, during which we hear some of music’s finest works for bells, from Mozart and Paganini through to Mussorgsky and Kodály. The concert is fascinating not only for the sheer variety of music featuring bells but also for the stories behind the bells themselves, including how bells were put to use in olden times, from sounding the alarm to drawing people’s attention to announcements, and even as a form of torture! Then came the digital age where ringtones have a new role – but that is the subject of another concert.

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard called Mozart the composer of sensouserotic genius, and although he used the expression in relation to Don Giovanni, the term is valid for his entire oeuvre.

A few lesser-known Mozart compositions come together in a joint production by the Hungarian State Opera and the Liszt Academy Concert Centre to form a titillating entity on the stage.

The opera The Impresario caricatures competing female singers, while the vocal nocturnes represent the hallmark genre of lovers who discover each other under the protective guise of night. The late night performance is for adults only, as the creators fully reveal the wealth of sensuality implied in the music of Mozart.

Tickets: HUF 1 400 Organiser: Filharmónia Budapest Ltd.; Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 4 200, 2 800 Organiser: Hungarian State Opera Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Works by Mozart, Paganini, Leoncavallo, Mussorgsky, Kodály and Rachmaninoff

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Mozart: The Impresario (K. 486) Mozart: Six Nocturnes (K. 346, 436–439, 549)

Jin Won La: San Jo (premiere in Hungary) Liszt: Mazeppa Ockmi Han: Beau Soir (premiere in Hungary) Liszt: Les Préludes Dae Sung Kim: Arirang Puri (premiere in Hungary) Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 Kwiran Lee, Yun Ha Hwang, In Mee Park, Eun Kyung Hong Kichoung Lee (piano) The global impact of Ferenc Liszt has long been recognized. He left indelible impressions not only on his own generation but also on the composers and pianists of succeeding generations.

Notwithstanding, few in Hungary appreciate the vigour with which the Liszt cult flourishes in South Korea.

Over the past 15 years the Korean Liszt Society, founded in 1999, has organized countless concerts to bring the art of Liszt to Far East audiences; on top of that, it has organised the highly prestigious Korean Liszt Competition three times since 2009. Of course, the impact of Liszt extends to pianists and composers alike, the latter who still find inspiration in his music, as this concert proves: South Korean pianists perform works by fellow South Korean composers who have been influenced by the Hungarian maestro.

As well as contemporary pieces, there are also original Liszt compositions, Mazeppa and Les préludes symphonic poems, and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 for two pianos.

Free tickets for the concert can be obtained from the ticket office of the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Each to their own!

Opera and Sexuality “They all do it this way” – which is to say, women do! Let us be clear: the title of one of the most beautiful works in operatic literature, Mozart's Così fan tutté (1790), reflects a mildly sexist attitude. However, however marginally politically incorrect the expression, the congenial librettist Lorenzo da Ponte knew full well that this title was more exciting and curiosity-provoking than, shall we say, L’infedeltà delusa (“Deceit Outwitted”, the 1773 comic opera from Eszterháza by Mozart's older contemporary, Haydn.) In the 19th century “Così” was misunderstood; it was regarded as frivolous and immoral, although Mozart's gorgeous music expresses a deep truth: that our feelings are stronger than the moral ideas which have been thrust upon us. Or, as Woody Allen might say, sex is a dirty thing but only if you are doing it right...

Mozart was the first composer to malleably reproduce sexual desires and emotional seduction in music. The prancing yet uncontrollable adolescent Cherubino in the Marriage of Figaro (1786) (“Non sò più cosa son, cosa faccio”) finds consummation in the conquests of the title character of Don Giovanni (1787) (“Là ci darem la mano”). But there was to be a successor to Don Juan's “genius sensuality” (Kierkegaard) in the guise of Bizet's hard-boiled figure of Carmen (1875).

The genre of opera first struck the notes of eroticism shortly after its inception. In the closing duet of The Coronation of Poppea (1642) Monteverdi creates the veritable prototype for a love duet; Wagner also employed its basic devices: the intertwining melodic lines and the repeatedly delayed melodic and harmonic resolutions are found in the ecstatic nocturnal encounter between Tristan and Isolde (1865). (Incidentally, the deceived husband King Marke and his entourage's arrival is an infinitely tragic instance of coitus interruptus.)

Nero and Poppea's consummated love – which is not immoral because of this – does not appear to confirm the warning which the spirits bestow on Alberich in Wagner's Rheingold (1869): “Only he who forswears love's power, only he who forfeits love's delights, only he can attain the magic to fashion the gold into a ring.” Quite the opposite. In his sexual dependency on Poppea, Nero flattens everyone and every political obstacle in his path, a case of “winner takes all” – both power and a good woman! You bet it does!

(And if we are talking about Alberich the dwarf: the psychological approaches of the early 20th century led to unfulfilled amorous fulfilment, the sexual oppression of the “ugly” person – the anti-hero – becoming an operatic theme: Schreker’s The Candidates (1918), Zemlinsky’s The Dwarf (1922), etc.)

Can we call Poppea the first whore in the operatic literature? I fear that because of her limitless desire for power, her lack of moral inhibitions – at least in the metaphorical sense – the answer is yes. In Venice in 1659 a true courtesan by the name of Lucietta Gamba sang the title role of Elena

by Monteverdi's pupil Francesco Cavalli, with – what’s more – the “sponsored” support of one of the patricians of the city state, who was as keen on the female sex as he was on opera. “Quella putta che canta” (“what a singing whore”) wrote the great librettist of the day, Gian Francesco Busenello, in one of his verse collections about Ms Gamba: we do not know if it was a case of sour grapes! In any case, the sexual woman as an operatic role first appears in the London stage parody The Beggars Opera by John Gay and John Christopher Pepusch in 1728.

In Elena, Menelaos, disguised as a woman, tries first to approach then to conquer the choice of his heart, the beautiful Helen, bringing men and women into sexual confusion. Much time had to pass from the situational comedies of early Baroque opera, from playful transvestism, until the operatic depiction of alternative gender tendencies. Although we can 27

DUNE Š judit Marjai

Each to their own!

Oper a and Sexualit y

regard Tchaikovsky's operas as sublimations of this kind, it was Britten who consistently transformed homosexual, indeed paedophilic inclinations – partly “hidden” from legal sanction of the time – into high art (Peter Grimes (1945), Billy Budd (1951), The Turn of the Screw (1954), Death in Venice (1973).

In an era when gayness was acceptable (and within an accepting social structure), the long and bumpy path towards liberation also became an operatic theme, such as Stewart Wallace's opera celebrating the life of the gay right's figure Harvey Milk (1995) or Péter Eötvös's opera about AIDS, Angels in America (2004).

The vocal transsexuality of 17 th century opera – for example, the personification of comic old women by a tenor or partial change of gender identity through falsetto – was replaced in the 18th century by the stylised “asexuality” bel canto (or “beautiful singing”) in the art of the castrato. The magic of the castrati was not just the sound of a boy's angelic voice being projected with the power of a man but their exceptional virtuoso singing skills. This was not least because they could begin their vocal studies while still children, given that they did not have to wait for puberty, which would otherwise alter the voice. Owing to the lack of testosterone, their ribs stretched further, and this resulted in large lung capacities and strong breath control.

Castrati attained astonishing pulmonary skills, capable of sustaining each single note for 70 or 80 seconds and adding coloratura in between.

Their asexuality was only conditional, since even though they could not beget children, some were capable of serving the pleasure of women (and some men). Because of their infertility, the church forbade them to marry (castration of children without medical reason was also, in principal, banned). By the same token, there has survived a decree from 1761 in which the senate of Hamburg, in view of his fine character and blameless life, permitted the “56-year-old eunuch” Filippo Finazzi to “copulate” with the widow of the Jersbeck blacksmith.

The question of physical love in its stripped-down form was first raised in Tannhäuser (1845/1861). Wagner, bowing to 19th century prudishness, of course depicts in dark colours “the truest essence of love”, contrasting it with the immaculate purity of Elizabeth. The flood of femme fatales culminating with Berg's Lulu (1937) began here in the cave of Venus. If not in the opera itself, in the prelude of Rosenkavalier (1911), before the curtain rises, Richard Strauss unmistakably depicts the sexual union of Marschalin and her young lover, Octavian. By contrast, in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtensk (1934) adultery occurs so openly, and is accompanied with such musical vehemence, that Stalin, the communist dictator, expressed his highest disapproval. Ligeti parodies another sexual perversion, caricaturing the dominatrix in his “anti-anti-opera”, Le Grand Macabre (1978/1996), in the figure of the sexually unquenchable Mescalina.

“I am a human being, I consider nothing that is human alien to me,” said Terrence, the comic playwright of Ancient Rome. It is our good fortune that the masters of opera writing also have the same faith.

Like every great artist.

Máté Mesterházi

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Tuesday 11 February 2014 / 22.00

Wednesday 12 February 2014 / 19.00

Solti Hall

Solti Hall

Thursday 13 February 2014 / 22.00

Solti Hall

Joint concert by the Liszt Academy and the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Reconnections – The Art of Chamber Music Brahms: String Sextet in G major, op. 36 – movement No. 1 Weiner: Divertimento, op. 20 Dohnányi: Piano Quintet in C minor, op. 1 – movements Nos. 3-4 Mark Kopytman: About an old tune Bartók: Divertimento (BB 118) Mozart: Symphony in G minor (K. 183) With students of the Liszt Academy and Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Keller András (conductor)

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds Mozart: The Impresario (K. 486) Mozart: Six Nocturnes (K. 346, 436–439, 549) Orsolya Sáfár, Andrea Puja (soprano); József Mukk (tenor); András Palerdi (bass) Orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera Conductor: Péter Oberfrank Hungarian text: Gergely Litkai Stage scenery and costumes: Róbert Menzel Director: János Szarka Details on page 26 Tickets: HUF 4 200, 2 800 Organiser: Hungarian State Opera Liszt Academy Concert Centre 30

“Politics is a tough world, whereas culture and the arts are able to create genuine bridges between nations,” stated Ilan Mor, Israeli ambassador to Budapest, in February 2013. That was when the one-week university chamber music workshop, which was initiated by the diplomat, was launched in Jerusalem.

The music academies of two great cities delegated their world-famous teachers to the first event in Jerusalem: from Budapest, András Keller (violin) and Csaba Onczay (cello); from Jerusalem, Zvi Carmeli (conductor), Lihai Ben Dayan (violin) and David Sella (cello), together with outstanding students. The workshop concluded with a concert in the Jerusalem Music Centre. In February 2014 Budapest hosts the continuation of this hugely successful workshop, the closing concert of which will be staged in the Solti Hall.

Private concert.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds Mozart: The Impresario (K. 486) Mozart: Six Nocturnes (K. 346, 436–439, 549) Orsolya Sáfár, Andrea Puja (soprano); József Mukk (tenor); András Palerdi (bass) Orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera Conductor: Péter Oberfrank Hungarian text: Gergely Litkai Stage scenery and costumes: Róbert Menzel Director: János Szarka Details on page 26 Tickets: HUF 4 200, 2 800 Organiser: Hungarian State Opera Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Friday 14 February 2014 / 19.00

Friday 14 February 2014 / 19.00

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Jenő Jandó & MÁV Symphony Orchestra Talent oblige!

Ivett Gyöngyösi Chopin: Barcarolle, op. 60 Chopin: Sonata in B minor, op. 58 Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, op. 75 (excerpts) Liszt: La leggierezza Liszt: Spanish Rhapsody

ivett Gyöngyösi

Erkel: Hunyadi László – Overture Liszt: Piano Concerto in E flat major Bartók: The Wooden Prince Jenő Jandó (piano) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Gábor Takács-Nagy (conductor)

The new series of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre – conceived with the aim of establishing a tradition – offers the opportunity every semester for individual students or ensembles of the Liszt Academy to introduce themselves. On this, the first such recital, we can hear Ivett Gyöngyösi, who despite her youth has won numerous competitions and is holder of the Junior Prima prize. A former student of Attila Némethy, she is currently studying in the class of Kálmán Dráfi. Her role model is Annie Fischer: the intensity of her piano playing and the power of her personality predestine her to follow in the footsteps of perhaps the most significant Hungarian female pianist of the 20th century. This solo recital gives her the opportunity to demonstrate both her extreme musicality and her remarkable virtuosity.

“The history of Hungarian music in a nutshell.” This could also be the title of the thought-provoking concert

by MÁV Symphony Orchestra. In 1932 Aladár Tóth wrote in the journal Nyugat that The Wooden Prince was “the first piece of music that enables Hungary to occupy a place in the front row of great music nations of the 20 th century”.

But when, we might ask, did we request admission to this elite club of music?

The answer is straightforward: in the mid-19th century with Erkel’s Hunyadi.

An enterprising company took this piece, which was premiered in Hungary in 1844, and stormed Vienna in 1856, only to be repulsed. In fact, it is miraculous that barely a lifetime later things were so much easier for Bartók’s generation. Berlin was just as receptive to the art of his generation as London or Vienna. Nonetheless, this miracle would have been inconceivable without the powerful aura of Ferenc Liszt.

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: MÁV Symphony Orchestra 31

Saturday 15 February 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 15 February 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 16 February 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Thomas Hengelbrock and the Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble Christine Schornsheim Harpsichord Recital J. S. Bach: Toccata in D minor (BWV 913) C. P. E. Bach: Sonata in B flat major (Wq 48/2) J. S. Bach: Toccata in C minor (BWV 911) C. P. E. Bach: Sonata in B minor (Wq 49/6) C. P. E. Bach: Sonata in A major (Wq 48/6) J. S. Bach: Toccata in D major (BWV 912) The toccatas of Johann Sebastian Bach, written in the 1710s, and sonatas of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, published in the 1740s, are separated not only by some 30 years but by an entire world in terms of style: the former represent Baroque improvisatory toccatas of northern Germany, while the latter personify the refined style of Empfindsamkeit, or “sensitivity”. Therefore, it will be all the more interesting to see how these works from the same family strain to accommodate each other in the same entertaining evening.

Christine Schornsheim, who with this concert also marks the birth of Philipp Emanuel Bach 200 years ago, has toured as soloist with Alte Musik Berlin in the past season. She regularly gives solo recitals, and her recordings of works

by Haydn and the Bach clan have won a hat full of awards. She also holds masterclasses all over the world, such as those in the Liszt Academy in the days preceding the concert.

Tickets: HUF 3 200, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 32

Carnival Winter Farewell with Folk Music Ágnes Herczku, István “Szalonna” Pál and Dániel Szabó Ágnes Herczku; Blanka Básits (vocal); István “Szalonna” Pál, Tamás Gombai (violin); László Mester (viola); Péter Molnár (double bass); Dániel Szabó (cimbalom); Csaba Czirják (tambura viola); Attila Gera (wind instruments)

J. S. Bach: Orchestral Suite in D major (BWV 1069) Telemann: Concerto Grosso in D major ( TWV 54:D3) Handel: Armida and Rinaldo (opera pasticcio compiled by Thomas Hengelbrock) Kate Lindsey (mezzo-soprano), Steve Devislim (tenor) Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble Thomas Hengelbrock (conductor)

Folk singer Ágnes Herczku created a jolly atmosphere for an entire country week after week as presenter of the folk music show Felszállott a páva. In this programme she and her fellow musicians summon the end-of-winter cheerfulness of the carnival season, the many customs and beliefs that are preserved in folk tradition. Though the carnival period officially runs from Epiphany to the start of Lent, for most of us the last three days, the “tail of the carnival”, represent the highpoint of festivities. This is when famous carnivals such as those in Rio and Venice are organized. But wherever we are in the world, there is one striking common feature: carnivals and charity processions always wind up with a big party. Even though it is another two weeks before the end of the carnival season, our team of fine musicians still guarantee a festive evening!

The German violinist, musicologist and conductor Thomas Hengelbrock, who at one time worked as assistant to Antal Doráti, came to world attention for his broad repertoire spanning all the way from early music to music of modern times. Violinist with Concentus Musicus Wien, and one of the founders of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Hengelbrock conducted Tannhäuser in Bayreuth in 2011. As leader of the BalthasarNeumann-Ensemble, which he founded in 1995, he conducts instrumental pieces

by Bach and Telemann, as well as opera pasticcio, which revives the traditions of Baroque music theatre. In accordance with 18th century practice, well-known and obscure yet valuable Handel arias are strung together onto a single dramaturgical thread, and these are then placed into the service of the story of Saracen sorceress Armida and Crusader knight Rinaldo.

Tickets: HUF 3 900, 2 800, 1 700 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 7 900, 6 500, 4 800 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Thomas Hengelbrock © Gunter GLÜCKLICH

Early Music and the Concept of a Musical Work “Bach did not intend to write musical works.” This astonishing thought can be found in the American philosopher Lydia Goehr's highly controversial 1992 book The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. Goehr, put forward the hypothesis that before the 19th century composers (and indeed music lovers) thought about music in a conceptual framework quite alien to the concept of a musical work of our own day. The philosopher identifies the shift that occurred in the second half of the 18th century when music became thought of as high art and the concept of a musical work emerged as a central aesthetic consideration. In 1840 Beethoven's one time student Carl Czerny wrote: “When performing a work by Beethoven (and this generally applies to all classical composers) the player cannot make changes to the composition – he cannot add or subtract anything – as people want to hear the work of art in its original form, as the master dreamed it and wrote it down.” This concept of the work being a closed and unchangeable thing in its own right, and the accompanying “museum ideology” which conceives the concert as a ritual, as a medium for contemplation of transcendent works of music, and views concert halls as temples of arts, as imaginary museums of imaginary works, to this day forms an organic part of how people think about music.

From Czerny's words we can perceive the hierarchical system of relations behind the 19th century concept of a musical work in which the composer – the “master” – occupies a higher status than the performer. The romantic concept of a musical work does not just regulate the hierarchical relation of creator and performer, it places under its authority a wide range of activities related to the work. The composer, during the course of an autonomous creative process, creates a self-contained, notated work. The printed score depicts the work in a unique manner and the notation unambiguously states the essential details of the work. Performers are able to comprehend these details to create performances that fit the composer's original intention and are faithful to the work (the “Werktreue” ideal).

But before 1800 performed works did not exist in an entirely recorded form.

For example, the Baroque opera pasticcio were haphazard mixtures of existing operatic arias which were imposed upon some sort of existing libretto. For the most part they do not reflect a musical dramatic intention, but were arias chosen to be the most comfortable for the singers and offering the greatest success for a given production. That this kind of pasticcio did not comprise a taut dramatic structure hardly bothered anybody in the 18th century, with one proviso of course: that the singer truly enchanted the listeners.

Gergely Fazekas 34

Leonard Bernstein © éva Horváth/mti

Sunday 16 February 2014 / 22.00 Wednesday 19 February 2014 / 22.00

2014. február 21./ 19.30

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

Saturday 22 February 2014 / 19.30 SUNDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Kurt Weill: The Threepenny Opera – suite for wind instruments Hindemith: Concert Music for Strings and Brass, op. 50 Bartók: Music for Stringed Instruments, Percussion and Celesta (BB 114) Ravel: Bolero Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Gergely Vajda (conductor)

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds Mozart: The Impresario (K. 486) Mozart: Six Nocturnes (K. 346, 436–439, 549) Orsolya Sáfár, Andrea Puja (soprano); József Mukk (tenor); András Palerdi (bass) Orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera Conductor: Péter Oberfrank Hungarian text: Gergely Litkai Stage scenery and costumes: Róbert Menzel Director: János Szarka Details on page 26 Tickets: HUF 4 200, 2 800 Organiser: Hungarian State Opera Liszt Academy Concert Centre 36

1928–1936, just nine years, and yet one full of upheavals in 20th century history: the Great Depression, the rise to power of Hitler and the construction of the Nazi state, the Berlin Olympics, and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War; while here in Hungary it marked the ousting of Bethlen, the Biatorbágy Plot, then the premiership and death of Gömbös. These years are at least as noteworthy in music terms, as the cross-section of works played by the Symphony Orchestra of Hungarian Radio demonstrates. Four markedly differing creative personalities – Weill, Hindemith, Bartók and Ravel – and four markedly differing sounds are selected from these years under the baton of Gergely Vajda, who is completely at home in 20th century music.

Tickets: HUF 3 500, 2 800, 2 000, 1 500 Student and concession tickets: HUF 2 500, 2 000, 1 400, 1 000 Organiser: Hungarian Radio Music Ensembles

Khatia Buniatishvili & Concerto Budapest Shostakovich: Chamber Symphony in C minor, op. 110a Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16 Dvořák: Symphony No. 8 in G major, op. 88 Khatia Buniatishvili (piano) Concerto Budapest András Keller (conductor) “Khatia is a young pianist of extraordinary talent. I was impressed by her exceptional pianistic gift, natural musicality, imagination and her brilliant virtuosity.” These enthusiastic words about Khatia Buniatishvili come from none other than legendary fellow pianist Martha Argerich. The 26-yearold Georgian artist is a regular guest of Concerto Budapest. This time she is performing the principal part in Grieg’s much-loved Piano Concerto in A minor with the resident orchestra of the Liszt Academy. András Keller and his musicians have already done much to promote the works of Dimitry Shostakovich in Hungary, and this noble aim is furthered with the chamber symphony version of the No. 8 string quartet (1960).

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Concerto Budapest

2014. február 22. / 22.00

Monday 24 February 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

MVM concerts – The Piano János Balázs Jr. Solo Recital The Three Faces of the Piano Part 1: Love and Passion Liszt: Spozalizio Liszt: Liebesträume, No. 3 Chopin: Nocturne in F sharp major, op. 15/2 Chopin: Ballad in F minor, op. 52 Part 2: Music of the Night Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit Liszt: Will-o'-the-Wisp Bartók: Out of Doors – Book II Part 3: The Devil of Technique Cziffra: Fantaisie Roumaine Schumann: Toccata, op. 7 Balakirev: Islamey – Oriental Fantasy, op. 18 Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 János Balázs Jr. (piano)

Details on page 26

“György Cziffra was always my greatest role model,” confessed the young pianist, who has already triumphed at several competitions.

“I listened to his records at home; my musician parents always mentioned his name with reverence. I never tried to copy him, but I endeavour to have an immediately recognizable sound, just as he had.” In light of this admission it comes as no surprise to find that János Balázs Jr. prefers playing works by composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Schumann, which give him plenty of space for free expression and the display of intense emotions. During this recital in the Liszt Academy he recalls the spirit of his role model with compositions that demand great virtuosity, and as such are rarely heard.

Tickets: HUF 4 200, 2 800 Organiser: Hungarian State Opera Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 5 000, 4 000, 3 500, 3 000, 2 000 Organiser: Jakobi Ltd.

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds Mozart: The Impresario (K. 486) Mozart: Six Nocturnes (K. 346, 436–439, 549) Orsolya Sáfár, Andrea Puja (soprano); József Mukk (tenor); András Palerdi (bass) Orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera Conductor: Péter Oberfrank Hungarian text: Gergely Litkai Stage scenery and costumes: Róbert Menzel Director: János Szarka

jános balázs Jr. © András éberling

37

Tuesday 25 February 2014 / 19.00

Wednesday 26 February 2014 / 19.00

Wednesday 26 February 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

W.A. Mozart: The Magic Flute Éva Marton (artistic director) Alpaslan Ertüngealp (conductor) András Almási-Tóth (director, set conception) Dániel Varró (translator) Krisztina Lisztopád (set) Maison Marquise by Tóth Bori (costume) Tamás Juronics (choreography) Csaba Somos (choirmaster) Mária Kerner (flute) Varga Viktória, Júlia Hajnóczy, Ildikó Jakab, Orsolya Ambrus, Tímea Tímár, Alexandra Ruszó (soprano); Szabolcs Brickner, Csaba Gaál, Béla T. Gippert (tenor); Krisztián Cser, Máté Szécsi (bass) Featuring the students of the Hungarian Dance Academy and Academia Hungarica Chamber Orchestra

38

Chamber Music – Tuned for Grand Hall Takács Quartet Jazz it!

Tálas Áron Quintet FEAT. János Hámori Jazz Fusion Áron Tálas (piano) Gergő Varga (saxophone) István Tóth Jnr. (guitar) Tibor Fonay (bass guitar) László Csizi (drums) Guest: János Hámori (trumpet)

Mozart: String Quartet in E flat major (K. 428) Janáček: String Quartet No. 1 (“Kreutzer sonata”) Dvořák: “American” String Quartet in F major, op. 96 Takács Quartet: Edward Dusinberre (violin) Károly Schranz (violin) Geraldine Walther (viola) András Fejér (cello)

It comes as no surprise to find that The Magic Flute by Mozart is the work chosen to inaugurate the 21st century history of opera performances in the Solti Hall, since this is perhaps the ultimate masterpiece of opera. The production is founded on the talents of rising stars of Hungarian opera, as well as recent graduates of the Singing Department, headed by Andrea Meláth. Artistic director Éva Marton and director and professor of stage performance András Almási-Tóth, who has invited young people to attend the performance, have actually positioned the Liszt Academy – or to be more precise the Art Nouveau building – at the centre of the performance and made it the backdrop to the whole production.

Many reckon Áron Tálas is a UFO – in the nicest possible sense, of course!

Tálas himself simply suggests that he is open and has a talent for sensing the different acoustic and register characteristics – and their connections – as one system. This is how he became a multi-instrumentalist: on this February evening he plays piano, but he is equally comfortable on drums and bass guitar.

His has a true composer’s soul; he wrote most of the numbers for his own band.

His original ensemble, the Hybrid Trio, in which Gergely Varga plays saxophone and László Csizi the drums, is this evening joined by one of the most soughtafter young bass guitarists, Tibor Fonay, and guitarist István Tóth Jr., who won the special prize at the Montreux Jazz Guitar Competition this year. Guest of the Tálas Áron Quintet is trumpeter János Hámori, who is known mainly for his playing in big bands but is equally at home in smaller formations.

In 1975 four students of the Liszt Academy, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gábor Ormai and András Fejér, put their heads together and came up with the Takács Quartet. In 1993 the British musician Edward Dusinberre took the place of first violinist Takács-Nagy, and American Geraldine Walther took over the role of cellist Ormai, although the quartet retained their name and original mission. Over the decades they have piled triumph on triumph, and in 2003 they finally collected a long-overdue Grammy for their recording of all Beethoven’s string quartets. This evening’s journey starts off with Mozart’s String Quartet in E flat major, which is dedicated to Haydn, followed by the exciting “Kreutzer Sonata” quartet of Janáček (inspired by a Tolstoy work), before we finally land in the New World and Dvořák’s string quartet, which employs American melodies.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Takács Quartet © Ellen appel

A Quartet of Distinction It is 1973. The location is the Bartók Conservatoire on Nagymező Street.

A young cellist, András Fejér, who was yet to matriculate, and a viola player, Gábor Ormai, go searching for the seventeen year old Gábor Takács-Nagy. Their proposition is that if all three were to win entrance into the Liszt Academy, would he play with them in a trio? Takács-Nagy's answer was an unqualified yes. And needless to say, all three of them sailed into the Liszt Academy.

In 1975 the members of this makeshift trio, all of whom were also enthusiastic soccer players, were kicking a ball around on a famous patch of land near the People's Stadium when they bumped into Károly Schranz. He was a few years older than them and already playing in the Opera House orchestra.

They asked him to join them because they wanted to play in a quartet. This was the categorical imperative for them. And so the Takács Quartet was formed. They were each roughly the same age as the members of the Waldbauer Quartet when they had formed their ensemble seventy-five years earlier. “All four of us felt from the first moment that we had a mission, that this project would amount to something. We took it all deadly seriously.

We knew that none of us wanted to be soloists, but neither did we want to disappear into an orchestra,” said former first violinist Nagy-Takács in a later interview about their philosophy. As Liszt Academy students, they enjoyed lessons by András Mihály, Sándor Devich, Ferenc Rados and György Kurtág. In 1976 they won first prize in the Liszt Academy's domestic competition, the “Leó Weiner”, and a year later – still barely out of their teens – won one of the most prestigious string quartet competitions in Evian, as well as the critics' prize.

Such recognition was still insufficient to allow them to cross the Iron Curtain freely, but winning the 1979 Portsmouth String Quartet Competition landed them a series of engagements and recordings. In 1981 they could travel outside Europe for the first time, the most important benefit being they could work with the legendary quartet player Zoltán Székely. In the shape of Bartók's former chamber partner, they could not have had in Székely a more perfect tour guide into the world of Bartók's quartets.

Thanks to another great Bartók quartet player, Dénes Koromzay, they were appointed the resident string quartet at Colorado University and, in 1986, all four of them moved to the United States.

Their difficulties began in the 1990s. First Gábor Takács-Nagy decided to leave the ensemble (although they still use his name as it continues to be one of the most valuable brand names in the world of chamber music).

Then, having found a new first violinist in the shape of Edward Dusinberre, Gábor Ormai very sadly passed away from cancer six months later. He was replaced by Robert Tapping. Miraculously this new line-up was able to carry on the spirit of the ensemble, and continues to do so even after Tapping withdrew to be replaced by Geraldine Walther in 2005. Some say that every seven years, all the cells in the human body are naturally replaced. This does not mean that a person's personality radically alters every seven years.

Despite the change of members, to this day the Takács String Quartet has succeeded in preserving its integrity, as attested by their 2003 Grammy Prize (for their recording of the Beethoven Rasumovsky Quartets) and by being the first string quartet to be listed on Gramophone Magazine's Hall of Fame, which was founded in 2011.

Gergely Fazekas

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Takács Quartet­ AFTER WINNING THE DISC OF THE YEAR AWARD (1983) © MTI

Tuesday 25 February 2014 / 19.00

Friday 28 February 2014 / 19.00

Friday 28 February 2014 / 19.00

Solti Hall

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Alexander Markov & the MÁV Symphony Orchestra Song recitals AT the Liszt Academy Andrea Meláth “Woman and Love” Songs by Rachmaninoff and Wolf Andrea Meláth (soprano) Katalin Alter (piano)

Alexander Markov (violin) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Péter Csaba (conductor)

For details see page 38

The Liszt Academy is performing a valuable cultural mission when it revives one of the most important genres of the bygone civil era, the song recital. If the symphony is equivalent to a novel, then the song recital is a novella. Andrea Meláth, holder of the Liszt and Bartók-Pászthory prizes and head of the Department of Vocal Studies of the Liszt Academy, has selected works from the oeuvres of two highly sensitive composers, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Hugo Wolf. The songs of Rachmaninoff, who treats the piano as an equal to the vocal score, and those of Wolf, who unifies the Wagnerian music drama concept with the song tradition of Schumann and Schubert, unite in a single great narrative, the theme of which is eternal and inexhaustible. Andrea Meláth and Katalin Alter offer a female interpretation of the mystery of love, although the lessons are equally relevant to both men and women.

World famous American violinist virtuoso Alexander Markov, who originally hails from Russia, again appears in Budapest as soloist with the MÁV Symphony Orchestra. Yehudi Menuhin first drew the world’s attention to Markov with these words: “He is without doubt one of the most brilliant and musical of violinists…

Alexander Markov will certainly leave his mark on the music lovers of the world and in the annals of the violin virtuosi of our day.” Menuhin’s prophesy has proved correct. In his music documentary The Art of the Violin Bruno Monsaingeon illustrated Paganini’s breathtaking Caprices with the artistry of Markov.

What exactly constitutes the devilish virtuosity of Paganini? How can the artist cope with the unbelievable technical intricacies? Is the struggle with notes capable of becoming music? Markov’s performance of the violin concerto will provide all the answers. The piece is framed by Dvořák’s beautiful symphonic ballad rich in sombre colours and the no less balladic Mendelssohn symphony.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 3 200, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

W.A. Mozart: The Magic Flute Éva Marton (artistic director) Alpaslan Ertüngealp (conductor) András Almási-Tóth (director, set conception) Dániel Varró (translator) Krisztina Lisztopád (set) Maison Marquise by Tóth Bori (costume) Tamás Juronics (choreography) Csaba Somos (choirmaster) Mária Kerner (flute) Varga Viktória, Júlia Hajnóczy, Ildikó Jakab, Orsolya Ambrus, Tímea Tímár, Alexandra Ruszó (soprano); Szabolcs Brickner, Csaba Gaál, Béla T. Gippert (tenor); Krisztián Cser, Máté Szécsi (bass) Featuring the students of the Hungarian Dance Academy and Academia Hungarica Chamber Orchestra

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Dvořák: The Noonday Witch, op. 108 Paganini: Violin Concerto in D major, op. 6 Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, op.

56 (“Scottish”)

1 March 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 1 March 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 2 March 2014 / 11.00

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Brahms: A German Requiem, op. 45 Andrea Csereklyei (soprano); Csaba Szegedi (baritone) Budapest Academic Choir Society (choral director: Ildikó Balassa), Cantemus Choral Institute, Nyíregyháza (choral director: Soma Szabó) Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Conductor: Dian Tchobanov

For details see page 38

A German Requiem is, in the minds of many, the foremost work of Brahms, and it is certainly his longest piece.

In contrast to many other requiems over the centuries, this work does not use the Latin taken from the funeral service but instead various Biblical extracts in the German translation

by Luther. Brahms did not write the work for liturgical purposes; he considered the human relationship with death to be more important than the Christian content. The composition, which testifies to his extraordinary musical craftsmanship, being full of fugues and remarkable harmonic and structural solutions, is one of the crowning achievements of Brahmsian Romanticism. On this occasion it is conducted by the Bulgarian-born Dian Tchobanov (now resident in Austria), with selected soloists and two outstanding Hungarian choruses, together with the Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 4 500, 3 900, 3 200 Organiser: Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra

W.A. Mozart: The Magic Flute Éva Marton (artistic director) Alpaslan Ertüngealp (conductor) András Almási-Tóth (director, set conception) Dániel Varró (translator) Krisztina Lisztopád (set) Maison Marquise by Tóth Bori (costume) Tamás Juronics (choreography) Csaba Somos (choirmaster) Mária Kerner (flute) Varga Viktória, Júlia Hajnóczy, Ildikó Jakab, Orsolya Ambrus, Tímea Tímár, Alexandra Ruszó (soprano); Szabolcs Brickner, Csaba Gaál, Béla T. Gippert (tenor); Krisztián Cser, Máté Szécsi (bass) Featuring the students of the Hungarian Dance Academy and Academia Hungarica Chamber Orchestra

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Death and Transfiguration Brahms: A German Requiem, op. 45 Andrea Csereklyei (soprano); Csaba Szegedi (baritone) Budapest Academic Choir Society (choral director: Ildikó Balassa), Cantemus Choral Institute, Nyíregyháza (choral director: Soma Szabó) Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Lecturer and Conductor: Gábor Hollerung Understandable Music – this is the title chosen for the popular series run by the Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra and Gábor Hollerung, in which a key work from the classical canon is presented in a highly digestible form for everyone young and old – and, indeed, middle-aged. Under the title Death and Transfiguration, the principal work of Brahms, A German Requiem, is placed into the deft hands of Gábor Hollerung, a representative of the oratorio repertoire who is fully trained to carry out aesthetic surgery: he adds numerous noteworthy details about the circumstances surrounding the origins and construction of the work.

Rest assured that Hollerung, renowned both as a conductor and lecturer, will bring everything into focus.

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 1 800, 1 200 Organiser: Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra 43

Overture in Stone The Facade of the Liszt Academy The building of the Budapest Liszt Academy, built between 1904 and 1907 to plans by Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl, does not possess a unified appearance, either as a mass or in its details. The block of the principal wing that overlooks today's Liszt Square rises in front of and above the side wings that look onto the streets. Although the secondary wings have facades between the gabled side projections, the central section on the principal wing is granted powerful emphasis with columned articulation and its culmination evoking a cupola.

The different appearances of the building sections emphasise the different functions of the institutions found within the building. The principal wing proclaims its function as a concert hall.

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The programme of ornamentation of the main facade introduces the concert halls and foyers like an overture; this facade prepares the audience for the experience of the inner chambers and concerts. The facade shows how the halls inside are orientated with respect to one another inside, their hierarchy.

This is an overture, not only in space but also in time. The architects were obliged to undertake an apparently conservative stylistic harmonisation of the original Lechner-Hungarian style art nouveau plans when they did not meet with the approval of minister Wlassics. They reshaped the facade sections first, and while planning, they created the principal fundamental elements of the programme as well as its system of relations.

While we find stone carved ornaments on the side facades applied with restraint, in the material of the central section, besides the stone carvings, there are colourful marble and sculptural creations, primarily in bronze and all in splendid richness. Nonetheless, asides from the Liszt statue and the Geniuses, they do not assume the principal role and are merely contributory elements to the facade. Their importance is similar to the footnotes appended to scientific works: they authenticate their usage.

The architectural forms which had lost their original meaning in eclecticism, now regain that meaning, or something close to it. As regards the cupola, we ought to interpret it as an innovative solution given that they can be found in every street corner of major cities in Hungary (on palaces, tenement blocks, railway stations), in a world where architects also ornamented public conveniences with orders of columns evoking the antique world, in contexts where usually there was no meaning to architectural form.

Despite this, we can still define the style of the building as eclectic; the atlases holding the balcony follow Baroque examples in their appearance and function. Ede Telcs's frieze evokes the putti of the quattrocento, the antique order of columns in their groupings being reminiscent of a late Roman triumphal arch, with similarly late Roman cornice sills with Egyptian details. The use of Viennese and Berlin art nouveau solutions further enriches the treasury of forms.

The principal facade – indeed the whole building – is permeated with the idea of the pairing of opposites. Friedrich Nietzsche's work The Birth of Tragedy could be of particular importance in a bibliography introducing the origin of the aesthetic that combines opposites in architecture. The reference to Nietzsche is justified by the bronze figures accompanying the marble frieze, the Apollonean priestesses and the Dionyssean figures of Pan. To quote: “the development of art is linked to the duality between Apollo and Dionysus.”

On two sides of the principal facade and on the section at the bottom, there is no grand architectural motif, only the evocation of natural forms.

© györgy Darabos

Overture in Stone The Facade of the Liszt Academy

Above the windows of the cellar and ground floor we see waves breaking on a shore. The cornerstones indicate the shore and are reminiscent of harbour bollards. The stained glass of the great windows also evoke the world of water, being the most conspicuous depictions of the organic relationship between facade and interior; we also see images of reed beds. The figurative motifs belonging to the windows (the masked pair of Thaleia and Melpomene) also connect the facade section to Dionysus. From this world the central section seems to rise, stressing its constructed character. On the ground floor gates in an Egyptian style open. The ornamental discs of the gates refer to the Sun God, as does the Egyptian motifs of the attic and the obelisks of the building corners.

Dorian columns rise to the height of two stories on the gates, as though on a substructure. In the words of Nietzsche: “Dorian art is that which captures Apollos's glorious posture of restraining Dionysus.” The sculptural ornamentation employed on the upper sections of the facade (the pair of swans guarding the lute, the laurel ornamentation) also links the Dorian columns to Apollo shining over the arts. Given the bronze angel heads decorating the chapters, the Dorian columns can also be interpreted as an element of shrine creation. The cupola-like formation of the roof expanding above the central section (the surface details of which were reconstructed during the last renovation) is reminiscent of the covering of a liturgical space.

The central section appears as a shrine and an island emerging from the world of water, perhaps a shrine to Apollo (Delian inspiration) merging into the Egyptian sun god. In the centre of the façade, on the border of two worlds, is the statue of Ferenc Liszt, the work of Alajos Stróbl. His enthroned appearance and papal clothing is not that as the founder of the institution (though evocation of the history of the institution played a role in the design of the facade, a fact alluded to by the portraits of Ferenc Erkel and Róbert Volkmann), but rather as chief priest and intermediary. The Liszt of the facade is the earthly regent of the gods of music. The tools of mediation – which at the same time proves his ability to mediate – can be seen in his hands: this is art itself (up close, the text of his oratorio The Legend of St Elizabeth is seen, which proclaims the possibility of salvation through art).

We encounter the reference to Christian art on one of the bronze heads placed on the banisters of the balcony of the Liszt statue. On the forehead of the female figure gesturing to the sky we can see the star of Mary, and among its attributes is the cross. Salvation by art – more precisely Apollonean art – is also proclaimed by the Genius figures of the facade created by Géza Maróti, which stand in the broken cornice of the principal ledge on both sides of the central gable, holding their hands aloft to the sky and each clasping a lute. The figures are the earliest to be conceived in the iconographic programme, and they also featured in the Lechner Hungarian-art nouveau version. These are the most important depictions and summaries of the iconographic programme of the principal façade, and thus the whole building.

They promise that anyone who passes through the Ancient Egyptian gateway into the Dorian temple of the Sun God Apollo, decorated with laurels, will encounter the ideal of eternal life.

Endre Raffay

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Finomra Finomra hangolva

hangolva

A Heti Válasz hétrôl hétre információt, mûveltséget és érveket ad olvasóinak.

Fizessen elő lapunkra, és legyen tagja a Heti Válasz hűségklubjának!

Akcióinkról és hűségprogramunkról a www.hetivalasz.hu/elofizetes honlapon olvashat.

Sunday 2 March 2014 / 19.00

Tuesday 4 March 2014 / 19.30

Thursday 6 March 2014 / 19.00

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

Talent oblige!

Musiciens libres J. S. Bach: Prelude in B minor (BWV 869) Shostakovich: Prelude and Fugue in E major, op. 87/9 Debussy: The Girl with Flaxen Hair Debussy: Dancers of Delphi Debussy: The Hills of Anacapri Shostakovich: Prelude and Fugue in A minor, op. 87/2 Bach: Six-part Ricercar (BWV 1079) Ginastera: 12 American Preludes Gershwin: The Man I Love Gershwin: Someone to Watch Over Me Gershwin: Fascinating Rhythm Gershwin: ’S Wonderful Gershwin: I Got Rhythm Júlia Karosi (vocals); Anasztázia Razvaljajeva (harp); Máté Bán (flute); Bálint Mohai (bassoon); Tamás Pregun (piano); Dániel Szabó (dulcimer); Péter Szűcs (clarinet); Tamás Zétényi (cello); Miklós Környei (guitar) Arrangement: János Ávéd, Bálint Laczkó, Márton Fenyvesi

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Acoustic, Authentic Ökrös Retrospective

Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Works by Jacques Offenbach, Johann Strauss, Ferenc Lehár and Imre Kálmán

Csaba Ökrös, Miklós Molnár (violin) László Kelemen (viola) László Mester (viola, gardon) Róbert Doór (double bass) András Berecz (vocals) Zoltán Juhász (recorder) Director: Csaba Horváth

The new series of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre offers the opportunity every semester for individual students or ensembles of the Liszt Academy to introduce themselves. Members of Musiciens Libres, as the name suggests, are trustees of musical freedom. They believe that there are no barriers between styles, that classic, contemporary, jazz and folk music all represent lasting values. They are the cream of their generation and comprise a jazz singer, a folk cimbalom player and several classical musicians. Their introductory concert runs the gamut from Bach to Gershwin; some of the pieces are performed in arrangements by the three resident composers, János Ávéd, Bálint Laczkó and Márton Fenyvesi.

The operetta repertoire of the decades preceding the First World War represents a most entertaining slice of European culture. Even today, they provide lighthearted entertainment for music lovers with their larger-than-life melodies, and unashamedly superficial and humorous plot lines. However, the waltzes and csárdás dances are not simply frivolous fun: they also serve as a tableau of their time. They entertain but also act as a mirror to society, as Offenbach explores; they promise fulfilment of foolish illusions and wishful thinking, as revealed by Johann Strauss; they comfort those fleeing reality, as works by Ferenc Lehár and Imre Kálmán so cleverly manage.

The Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, currently marking its 20th season, selects gems from this operetta treasury and promises the Budapest audience unclouded entertainment on this early spring day.

Incredible as it may seem, but the history of rediscovered folk music – “revival” – has already produced its own legends.

A new generation takes to the stage, a generation who only knows second hand the Ökrös ensemble, whose work remains the standard for all string musicians on the folk music scene. The big steps in remembrance are measured in decades.

After all, it has been nearly 10 years since the members of Ökrös were scattered in all directions. And 20 years since the band made a recording in Hollywood at the request of Dave Feeney. Given that the members of the old band have remained active in music life, the concert will not merely be a sentimental trip down memory lane but an authentic, pure and vigorous exposition of folk music.

The concert, with its origins in Transylvanian string music, is picked from the band’s earlier repertoire; the legendary ensemble get together again for a single evening to revive the past on a unique occasion.

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 3 100, 2 400, 1 700, 1 000 Organiser: Óbudai Danubia Nonprofit Kft.

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Conductor: Domonkos Héja

Thursday 6 March 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

Friday 7 March 2014 / 19.30 Saturday 8 March 2014 / 15.00

GRAND HALL

David Fray & the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Vanhal: Symphony in D minor Mozart: Piano Concerto in D minor (K. 466) J. S. Bach: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor (BWV 1052) Mendelssohn: String Quartet in A minor, op.

13 (version for string orchestra) David Fray (piano) Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Artistic Director: János Rolla

David Fray

The D minor key dominates the March concert by the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, as the orchestra moves into their second half century of existence.

The programme runs from Johann Sebastian Bach to a work composed

by Felix Mendelssohn at the age of 18.

“We are seeking new stars with whom we find something in common,” was how Artistic Director János Rolla put it in an interview, and in place of those great and popular soloist partners who have departed musicians of such talent as David Fray immediately take their place. Born in 1981, this French pianist star has a long line of competition wins behind him, and it is now the turn of a Budapest audience to enjoy his piano skills. In the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy, in the company of the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, the pride both of the academy and Hungarian music life, Fray performs the principal parts in two piano concertos.

Tickets: HUF 8 000, 6 500, 5 000, 3 500 Organiser: Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

Gennady Rozhdestvensky & Concerto Budapest Liszt: Prometheus Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, op. 40 Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E flat major, op. 82 Viktoria Postnikova (piano) Concerto Budapest Gennady Rozhdestvensky (conductor) Now in his 83 rd year, Gennady Rozhdestvensky is a doyen of the international conductor elite and a hugely competent conductor. For decades he headed the Moscow Bolshoi; he also conducted the Moscow TV and Radio Symphony Orchestra, and was linked to, and remains closely connected with, top orchestras in the West. After an absence of exactly 10 years, he returns to the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy.

Directing the resident orchestra of the academy, Concerto Budapest, Rozhdestvensky conducts Russian and Romantic works close to his heart and artistic temperament, including Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 4, the virtuoso solo of which will be performed by Rozhdestvensky’s wife, the superb Viktoria Postnikova.

Tickets: HUF 6 400, 4 700, 3 200 Organiser: Concerto Budapest 49

Saturday 8 March 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 9 March 2014 / 11.00

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

Károly Binder A Composer’s Evening Károly Binder (piano) Mihály Borbély (saxophone) Gábor Varga (piano) Tibor Fonay (double bass) Ákos Benkó (drums)

károly Binder © zsolt hamarits

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Liszt Kidz Academy Music and Fine Art For 10–15-year-olds Works by Liszt, Debussy and Ligeti István Lajkó (piano) Presenter: Zsuzsanna Weiszburg

He is a pianist, composer and head of the jazz department at the Liszt Academy. A musician who has employed his great talent in the task of synthesising new trends, diverse music cultures, compositional techniques and improvisational systems, while never forgetting his own musical roots. Károly Binder is a towering figure on the domestic jazz scene, who with more than 60 recordings to his name presents a composer’s evening in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy. This recital combines a display of his great oeuvre and new, forwardlooking compositions. He is joined by his old friend and academy colleague Mihály Borbély, as well as three young but sensational talents: Ákos Benkó, 2012 winner of the Jávori Vilmos jazz drummer talent contest; Tibor Fonay, winner of the 2013 Orszáczky Jackie Bass Guitar Competition; and Gábor Varga, student of Károly Binder.

Amongst schoolchildren there are always a number who are into maths, some literature buffs, and some budding historians. Of course, these various subcultures are not totally isolated from one another, and when it comes to music crossing between them is especially easy. As music has a connection to everything, it reveals as much about maths as it does about literature, fine art or sport. The Liszt Kidz Academy, our very own youth series here at the Liszt Academy, ventures into these four subjects.

On this the second occasion in the series the question revolves around how fine art and music are linked. Is it possible to draw with music? Can we make audible what we can see? What impact did the great masters of painting have on the great masters of composition? Can optical illusions be set to music? This concert for 10–15-year-old students seeks answers to these and similar questions. It features István Lajkó, Junior Prima prize-winning pianist.

Tickets: HUF 3 900, 2 800, 1 700 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Hungarian Jazz Grows Up Commencing in January 2014 special jazz concerts will be held every month in the Solti Hall of the Liszt Academy. Five of these will feature freshly graduated students or those about to graduate, and so will demonstrate the future directions of Hungarian jazz life. An important part of the new concert structure will be the Jazz Faculty's new teacher-student evenings, when students groups judged ready to perform on stage will make music with the teacher of their choice. Virtually all will be bringing their own compositions and arrangements; they won't be satisfied with performing familiar jazz standards. Faculty leader Károly Binder is particularly pleased about this, because this is precisely what he wants to train his students to do: to have the desire and audacity to express themselves through music, to create their own individual sound worlds. He also welcomes the fact that over the past couple of decades, Hungarian jazz has grown up. Compared to its initial tendencies, when understandably everyone was aping the American stars old and new, Hungarian musicians, like those in other European jazz nations, have been exploring their own unique paths for a while now, for example in the form of ethno-jazz or other experimental endeavours. Binder shares with the late György Vukán creativity and supreme improvisational skill, which is why he sat alongside Béla Szakcsi Lakatos on the first Create Art Prize jury, which was founded by Vukán. The first winner in 2011, Máté Pozsár, will be displaying his improvisational talents in the very first of the student teacher evenings on 31 January. The series will conclude on 1 June with the winner of the 2013 Create Art Prize, pianist Tamás Balogh, who will be playing with his trio and displaying his own style of improvisation. The student performers on the February and April evenings, Áron Tálas and Dániel Szebényi, will also be playing the black and white keys, illustrating a trend of many years, namely that a great many pianists have entered the jazz faculty. Similarly high in number are female singers, which is a welcome phenomenon because those wishing to succeed in the profession will by necessity need to develop their own inimitable vocal styles. Sadly there are relatively few male singers, although those that have emerged have been well received by audiences, showing the interest in young people with golden vocals. At the final concert of the season, five of the finest female singers will be demonstrating their own reinterpretations of the art of Ella Fitzgerald.

Another current shortage is in good trombone and double bass players, and yet there can be no classical jazz trios or rhythms sections in larger ensembles without them. For this reason, bass teacher Tibor Csuhaj-Barna regards working with Marcell Gyányi particularly joyous and promising: he plays not just bass guitar but has taken up the double bass as his primary instrument.

These young performers, with their exceptional ability as instrumentalists and broad knowledge of styles, will boldly make music with their teachers, in doing so testifying to the quality of their training and also of their maturing skills of self-expression.

Barbara Bércesi 51

Selftimer No. 8 © Ágnes Éva Molnár

Sunday 9 March 2014 / 19.30

Tuesday 11 March 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Hungarian Radio Choir Mendelssohn: Elijah, op. 70 Szilvia Hamvasi (soprano) Schöck Atala (alto) László Kálmán (tenor) István Kovács (bass) Hungarian Radio Choir Symphony Orchestra of Hungarian Radio Old Testament prophet Elijah is the subject of this Romantic oratorio that Felix Mendelssohn – who had long been interested in this visionary destroyer of idols – composed for the Birmingham Festival. Elijah debuted in August 1846, just a year before the death of the composer. It was written in German but sung in English for its world premiere, and it reflects the oratorio traditions of both Bach and Händel. The “rapture”, the key moment in the story of the prophet Elijah, will this time be asserted in a different form, since this promises to be an intensely committed production from the ensembles of Hungarian Radio. It brings together such experienced Hungarian oratorio artists as Szilvia Hamvasi and bass István Kovács as soloists.

Tickets: HUF 3 500, 2 800, 2 000, 1 500 Student and concession tickets: HUF 2 500, 2 000, 1 400, 1 000 Organiser: Hungarian Radio Music Ensembles

Malcolm Bilson & Orfeo Orchestra Haydn-Mozart Recital Mozart: Symphony in A major (K. 201) Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major (K. 414) Haydn: Symphony No. 43 in E flat major (“Mercury”) Mozart: Piano Concerto in E flat major (K. 449) Malcolm Bilson (fortepiano) Orfeo Orchestra György Vashegyi (conductor) It is no exaggeration to say that 78-yearold Malcolm Bilson is a living legend of historical performance practice and there can be few artists more dedicated to the fortepiano. Hungarian audiences have had a lengthy relationship with the American artist – he is a professor of the Early Music Department of the Liszt Academy – and this familiarity only serves to heighten the significance of the joint appearance, with György Vashegyi and the Orfeo Orchestra, in the Grand Hall. During the recital we will hear two Mozart piano concertos he once recorded with John Eliot Gardiner: the concerto in A major from 1782 and the E flat major concerto from 1784.

Malcolm Bilson

Tickets: HUF 5 400, 4 300, 2 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 53

DIZZY GILLESPIE (1989) © ANDRÁS BÁNKUTI

IVÁN FISCHER and ZOLTÁN KOCSIS © ANDRÁS BÁNKUTI

International Liszt Piano Competition (1956) © DEZSŐ SZIKLAI/MTI

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Corner of Teréz boulevard and Király Street with the Liszt Academy in the background (1939) © FORTEPAN

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Wednesday 12 March 2014 / 19.30

Friday 14 March 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

MVM concerts – The Piano Jenő Jandó Piano Recital Beethoven: 32 Variations on an Original Theme (WoO 80) Brahms: Four Ballads, op. 10 Schubert: Sonata in C minor (D. 958) Jenő Jandó (piano) Overwhelmed after one of Jenő Jandó’s masterclasses, and summoning the fervent and adulatory tone of German novels of yore, one person wrote of Jandó: “The typically Brahmsian, compact and dense texture, the dark depths of tonality of ballads, were revived by him in a heartfelt and most poetic manner.

He was fascinated by the grandiose and clear formation of the first movement of the Schubert sonata. The listener was immediately captivated by the swift rhythm of the fourth movement, in order to tear along – without drawing breath – through the romantic world of the tonal-harmonic labyrinth.” We can expect a similarly stirring experience, especially if all this is accompanied by a timbre “recalling the dark gloss of ebony, substantial and resonant, but never hard” and with such “pianistic omniscience in which there is virtually no trace of superficial glitter.” jenő Jandó

Tickets: HUF 6 000, 5 000, 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: Jakobi Kft. 56

Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi & the Hungarian National Philharmonic Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor (“Resurrection”) Tünde Szabóki (soprano) Bernadett Wiedemann (mezzo-soprano) Hungarian National Philharmonic National Choir (choral director: Mátyás Antal) Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi (conductor) 2014 marks the fourth decade since the winner of the 1st International Conductors’ Competition of Hungarian Television (1974), Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, became a firm favourite with the domestic audience and one of the principal figures of Hungarian music life. The Japanese conductor is virtually an adopted Hungarian, or as he has put it, through reincarnation he feels and regards himself to be Hungarian. The master has even closer ties with the Hungarian National Philharmonic, since for a decade he was the principal conductor of the 90-year-old ensemble, giving numerous memorable concerts in Hungary and abroad. This Liszt Academy recital promises to be yet another great moment, when Gustav Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony No. 2 is performed.

Tickets: HUF 5 200, 4 300, 3 600, 2 900, 2 100 Organiser: Hungarian National Philharmonic

ICON © Tamás Dobos

Sunday 16 March 2014 / 19.00

Tuesday 18 March 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Talent oblige!

Classicus EnsemblE Smetana: Polkas Janáček: Fairy Tale Janáček: Sonata for Violin and Piano Dvořák: Piano Quartet in E flat major, op. 81 Zoltán Fejérvári (piano) Péter Tornyai (violin, viola) Oszkár Varga (violin) Tamás Zétényi (cello)

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Chamber Music – Tuned for Grand Hall Kristóf Baráti Violin Solo Recital Ysaÿe: Sonata No. 2 in A minor (“Jacques Thibaud”) Ysaÿe: Sonata No. 3 in D minor (“George Enescu”) J. S. Bach: Partita in D minor (BWV 1004) Bartók: Solo Sonata (BB 124)

The new series of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre – conceived with the aim of establishing a tradition – offers the opportunity every semester for individual students or ensembles of the Liszt Academy to introduce themselves.

In the third programme of the series the main role is given to the Classicus Ensemble. Zoltán Fejérvári, János Palojtay, Péter Tornyai and Tamás Zétényi met at the Liszt Academy during lessons given by Barnabás Dukay and Rita Wagner, as well as on courses run

by Gábor Csalog and Balázs Arnóth.

In 2009 they founded their own ensemble, exploiting their experience as members of the Ludium Ensemble, which specialized in the works of Kurtág.

The ensemble constantly changes composition depending on engagements abroad and the given programme: for this recital Oszkár Varga (violin) joins them. The chamber recital of Czech composers’ works includes two Janáček compositions, which are particularly close to Zoltán Fejérvári, who arranged the evening’s programme.

There is rarely a more heart-stopping, more achingly beautiful experience than when the notes of a single violin fill the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy.

And when the wielder of the bow is Kristóf Baráti, we can truly speak of the promise of an unforgettable experience. Kristóf Baráti started as a wunderkind and today even at international level he is regarded as one of the great talents. He studied at the Liszt Academy when he was aged just 12, and at the age of 17 he was discovered by Professor Eduard Wulfson, director of the Stradivarius Society, following which he rocketed to world fame. He has toured the world (Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Chicago, Shanghai), worked with a dozen major conductors, and won a cabinet full of festival prizes, the highpoint of which was surely the “Oscar for violinists” at the 6th Paganini Competition in Moscow in 2010.

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 3 900, 2 800, 1 700 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Kristóf Baráti (violin)

Kristóf Baráti

You Are Alone “Sei Solo” – written in Bach's own hand on the frontispiece of the six sonatas for solo violin. Properly, it should be Sei Soli because the words Bach used also mean “you are alone”. Whether this was intentional is immaterial, the motto suits the music. Alone in the world, alone on the stage. An interview with Kristóf Baráti on the occasion of his first solo recital at the Academy of Music.

Do you need special preparation for such a weighty task?

No. Wherever I perform and in whatever combination, I prepare as if success is in my own hands. I regard a solo recital as an opportunity, an opportunity to perform the musical material with the greatest clarity I can imagine. Also, it is an opportunity for dialogue. On these occasions a much stronger bond can be formed with the audience, and this is strengthened by the aura of the Liszt Academy and its acoustics. I think I have sufficient basis for comparison to state that, for solo and chamber performances, there is no auditorium in the world with better acoustics. Being alone on the stage is naturally also a challenge. There is not even ten seconds of rest, an ensemble cannot inspire me, nor a conductor. The source of the experience is just the composition and my playing.

Bach plays a major role in your concert today.

In a way, that is self-explanatory because Bach's solo sonatas are a point of reference for the whole violin literature. These works can be regarded as the starting point for the structures and allusions of the other works in the programme by Ysaÿe and Bartók. The Chaconne in D minor is unique both in the sonata cycle and in Bach's oeuvre. It employs a universal language that transcends the possibilities of the instruments and the characteristics of the dance movements, suggesting a very strong inspiration.

But the whole cycle is mysterious; we do not know why, with the exception of the last partita, the movements are all given Italian names. Perhaps the composer intended them for an exceptionally talented Italian violinist.

Compared to the standards of the time, it is not obvious how their technical challenges could have been overcome.

Ysaÿe's works are not exactly famous for being easy either, not to mention the Bartók sonata.

Ysaÿe was himself a world famous violinist. His works are idiomatic; they demand much from the performer, but they are also rewarding. In terms of mood and their harmonic world, they are perhaps lighter than the works of Bach and Bartók, but in no way should they be underestimated. In my opinion, Bartók's solo sonata is the zenith of the violin repertoire, possibly of the entire string repertoire. It is stunning proof of the intellectual greatness of its composer. It can never be played too much. The fugue movement is the hardest work in the violin repertoire, harder than any Paganini piece.

The slow movement explores depths which are unusually despairing and dark even in Bartók's work, and during the quarter tone explorations of the closing presto, it feels like we have been liberated from the fog when hope suddenly sparkles with the arrival of a folk motif.

Péter Lorenz 59

The Neurobiologist Jazz Pianist The August 2012 issue of the trend-setting American jazz magazine Down Beat could scarcely list all the categories in its 60th annual vote of jazz critics for which Vijay Iyer took first place. The forty-two-year-old Iyer was named Jazz Artist of the Year, his trio was declared Band of the Year, his album Accelerando Album of the Year and Iyer himself was voted both Composer of the Year and Pianist of the Year (beating Keith Jarrett by seven points and Brad Mehldau by twenty-three.) Rarely has any musician been honoured by such a comprehensive sweep of victories, proving beyond question that this is an artist who has been placed upon the highest pedestal by the profession. And we should not neglect to mention that in 2009, Iyer's trio recording Historicity (with Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums) received a Grammy nomination. Or that in 2010 Iyer was named Musician of the Year by the American Jazz Journalist's Association (JJA).

These successes opened new doors for Iyer and the trio: they were able to tour more, taking their music to new places. Iyer, with his Indian ancestry, is a first generation American whose origins have naturally shaped his life and art.

It is no accident that another musician with Indian roots, the increasingly celebrated alto-saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, has featured in several of Iyer's productions, and vice versa. The question of identity has always played an important role for Iyer. He has been influenced by several artists in whose music the civil rights movement of the sixties found musical expression. These include Wadada Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell and the poet Amiri Baraka. He numbers amongst his mentors the saxophonist Steve Coleman, founder of the M-Base movement and style. Coleman says Iyer is an “analytical thinker, a super-intelligent figure.� Thanks to Iyer's abilities, he was able to become an independent thinker, a pianist and composer seeking new paths. Iyer also studied mathematics and physics at university, and for his doctorate investigated the neurobiological questions of musical cognition. As a result, his compositions offer the listener not just an aesthetic pleasure but serious intellectual sustenance.

Over the years Iyer's music has become more refined, he has placed into the foreground the rhythmic pulse secured by Stephan Crump and Marcus Gilmore (Gilmore is the grandson of the legendary Roy Haynes), over which he is able to conjure breathtakingly complex yet fluid improvisations from his instrument. He transcends barriers, drawing on elements from classical, pop, funk, Carnatic and Hindustani music, to makes his jazz constructions even more exciting.

Barbara BĂŠrcesi

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Vijay Iyer © Jimmy katz

Thursday 20 March 2014 / 19.30

Wednesday 26 March 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 – Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi & the Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125

Vijay Iyer Trio [USA]

The New Yorker called Vijay Iyer one of “today’s most important pianists… extravagantly gifted … and brilliantly eclectic”. In 2010 he was voted Musician of the Year by the American Jazz Journalists Association, and in the same year his trio album Historicity received a Grammy nomination. Born in New York of immigrant Indian parents, Iyer played in a variety of bands including alongside Steve Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell and Rudresh Mahanthappa.

The ensemble founded with drummer Marcus Gilmore and double bass player Stephan Crump is a modern rethink of the classical piano trio, in which refined rhythmic solutions for the base beat, fluent improvisation, and emotional and carefully contrived textures are given particular prominence.

It is not widely known that the popular Japanese conductor Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi originally trained as a composer and is still active today.

He was enthralled by music composition as a child, and when aged 10 he heard Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 on the radio.

“It was as though the Gods had spoken to me. The melodies were mixed together and murmuring, and then suddenly they transmogrified into freedom and light, and this profoundly affected me as a young boy. I wanted to be a composer.”

In the course of his career he has conducted – always with great imagination – this outstanding composition at the head of several Hungarian ensembles. His contacts with the Liszt Academy and its students strengthened in 2012 when, as honorary professor, he organized a masterclass and concert. The next step in this joint work is performing together his favourite Beethoven symphony.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Vijay Iyer (piano) Marcus Gilmore (drums) Stephan Crump (double bass)

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Students of the Department of Vocal Studies Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (choral director: Péter Erdei) Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi (conductor)

Strength in numbers: How Fibonacci taught us how to swing Playing music sharpens the brain. It's proven. I'm a musician, but I've also spent a number of years studying mathematics and physics. That is unlikely to have made me a better musician or composer, but playing music from an early age has, quite possibly, made me better at maths. Today I like to let both disciplines talk to each other, and use mathematical ideas in my composing. They help me find sounds and rhythms that I might never have made otherwise. I want to make music that hits me viscerally, but in surprising, unobvious ways.

I want to show you one example involving Fibonacci numbers. Fibonacci was a 13th-century Italian mathematician who brought the Indian-Arabic number system to Europe. He also wrote about the set of numbers that now bears his name. I became intrigued by these numbers some years ago, and have used them to structure much of my work ever since.

The Fibonacci sequence begins: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, and continues from there. Each number in the sequence is the sum of the previous two numbers, and it continues ad infinitum. If you look at the ratios of two successive Fibonacci numbers, and keep going up the sequence, you get: 1, 2, 1.5, 1.667, 1.6, 1.625, 1.615, 1.619, 1.618 … As you go up the sequence, this ratio gets closer and closer to a famous irrational number called the "golden ratio": 1.6180339887.

That ratio has been observed frequently in dimensional proportions across many different contexts: in architecture from the Pyramids of Giza and the Parthenon, to constructions by Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe; images by artists from Da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer to Juan Gris, Mondrian and Dalí; and rhythmic durations and pitch ratios in works by composers from Bartók and Debussy to John Coltrane and Steve Coleman. (It was Coleman introduced me to this whole idea.)

What interests me about Fibonacci numbers is their scaling property.

As the ratios get successively closer to the golden ratio, the ratio 5:3 is not the same as but is "similar" to the ratio 8:5, which is "similar" to the ratio 13:8, or 144:89, or 6,765:4,181. But what do I mean by as vague a term as "similar"?

This is a question I explore musically with my trio's version of Mystic Brew, a 70s soul-jazz classic by Ronnie Foster. The harmonic rhythm in Foster's original is asymmetric in a Fibonacci way: a short chord and then a long chord, three beats plus five beats, totalling eight beats. It's standard fourfour time, with one added feature: if you were to step to the beat, you'd hear a chord when you take your first step, and then another chord while your knee is aloft between the second and third steps. This is a rhythm that you hear in all kinds of places – think of the opening chords of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.

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Strength in numbers: How Fibonacci taught us how to swing

Suppose you had a round pie and eight guests. You know how to divide the pie into eight equal pieces, and you know exactly what that pie would look like with three pieces missing. Now, suppose five more friends unexpectedly show up. You have the same pie and 13 guests. How do you divide a circle into 13 by eye? A decent short cut would be to imagine it divided into eight with three pieces missing, and cut that shape. Then, divide the smaller section you've just cut into five equal pieces, and the larger section into eight. Your result would be close enough.

This is something like the technique we use here, only instead of a pie, we divide a length of time. The three beats and five beats of the original are transformed to faster five beats and eight beats (totalling 13), which then becomes a still-faster eight beats and 13 beats (totalling 21). Each transformed measure is roughly the same length and, importantly, the second chord lands at roughly the same time, about 3/8 of the way through (or 5/13, or 8/21).

The goal is that you perceive the "short-long" division of the cycle the same way in each case. Thankfully, the ear is forgiving: because we expect and even crave continuity in our perception, our listening brains help smooth things out. Like – hopefully – the guests eating your slices of pie, the ear doesn't complain about small differences. In this case, the overall motion proceeds seemingly undeterred – including a sense of regular pulse – while the music's inner mechanism seems to quicken.

As abstruse as some of this may seem, there are specific cultural origins for these techniques. As the American-born son of immigrants from India, I'm very inspired by Carnatic music, the "classical" music of southern India.

It is a tradition of religious song, very intricately organised: melodically nuanced and rhythmically dazzling, full of systematic permutations. I'm also interested in the African roots of African-American music, which have a profound and widespread influence on nearly every vernacular music we have in the west.

These non-western musical traditions are just as deeply ordered with rhythm as western music is with harmony. But there's a qualitative difference between rhythm and harmony: when you organise rhythms, you structure a listener's experience in time. Rhythm is the first thing we perceive about music. It hits us viscerally. Why? Perhaps it's because the rhythms of music are not so different from the inherent timescales of human bodies.

So when you impose rigorous order on musical rhythm, you are organising human motion. You create a dialogue between the physical and the ideal: embodied human action in a structured environment. The process gives us something to strive for, to work through, to achieve with virtuosity and grace. This is the case with music, sport, dance, ritual, games, art. The dialectic between soul and science, freedom and discipline, self and non-self – dare I say it? That's culture in a nutshell.

It is this very dialogue – this sustained interaction between ourselves and the world around us – that I wish to make audible through music.

That's true whether it's my own compositions, arrangements of familiar songs, ensemble projects, or perhaps most revealingly, solo concerts.

That will be a sustained interaction between my body, the piano, history, memory, numbers, acoustics, and you.

Vijay Iyer Excerpt from the article published in the Guardian’s 15 October 2009 issue

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WE ARE ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH

TOGETHER IT’S POSSIBLE Liszt Academy is supported

by T-Systems Hungary www.t-systems.hu

Friday 28 March 2014 / 19.45 Saturday 29 March 2014 / 19.45

Saturday 29 March 2014 / 15.30

Sunday 30 March 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Zugló Philharmonics Budapest

Elena Bashkirova & Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival

GRAND HALL

Finghin Collins & the Budapest Festival Orchestra Haydn: Symphony No. 1 in D major Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor (K. 491) Beethoven: 12 German Dances (WoO 8) Mozart: Symphony No. 33 in B flat major (K. 319) Finghin Collins (piano) Budapest Festival Orchestra Gábor Takács-Nagy (conductor)

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Bartók: Two Portraits, op. 5 (BB 48b) László Dubrovay: Cello Concerto (premiere) Poulenc: Stabat Mater Rita Rácz (soprano); Áron Dóczi (violin); István Várdai (cello) Zugló Philharmonics Budapest – Szent István Király Symphony Orchestra & Oratorio Chorus György Vashegyi (conductor)

The Budapest Festival Orchestra are bringing to Budapest many legendary instrumental soloists for the ensemble’s jubilee, its 30th concert season; however, there is still room for talented young musicians who have yet to make their name on the world stage. One such musician is the Irish pianist Finghin Collins, who on the two evenings ahead of his 37 th birthday, will be performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C minor, composed in the winter of 1785–86, in the company of the Festival Orchestra and guest conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy.

The programme includes symphonies by a youthful Haydn and Mozart, as well as the German Dances series, perhaps the most popular of “light music” pieces from Beethoven, and like the Mozart piano work, from the imperial capital and dated 1785.

It is rare indeed for György Vashegyi, a leading figure in early music, to conduct 20th century music, so this world premiere is exceptional. He is joined on cello by the sublimely skilled István Várdai in the debut of Cello Concerto by László Dubrovay, who was awarded a Kossuth Prize in 2013. Until tonight the music of Francis Poulenc has not appeared on the repertoire (which numbers 100 composers) of Vashegyi. This is his chance to give his own interpretation of one of the finest ecclesiastical compositions of the 20th century while conducting the experienced Szent István Király Symphony Orchestra & Oratorio Chorus, which in the past few years has performed this remarkable, extremely personal and mystical work on several occasions. The concert opens with Two Portraits by Bartók, with concertmaster of the ensemble, Áron Dóczi, soloist for the opening movement expressed as a violin concerto.

Tickets: HUF 10 000, 6 000, 4 200, 3 400 Organiser: Budapest Festival Orchestra

Tickets: HUF 2 100, 1 800, 1 500 Organiser: Zugló Philharmonics Budapest

Haydn: Flute Trio in G major (Hob. XV:15) Berg: Chamber Concerto (excerpt) – Adagio (author’s arrangement) Beethoven: Clarinet Trio in B major, op. 11 Beethoven: Variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu“, op. 121a Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1, op. 9 (Anton Webern’s arrangement) Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival: Michael Martin (violin); Andreas Brantelid (cello); Guy Eshed (flute); Shirley Brill (clarinet); Elena Bashkirova (piano) Elena Bashkirova – formerly the wife of Gidon Kremer, today Daniel Barenboim’s spouse – arrives in Budapest with the exciting line-up of the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, which was founded by her in 1998 and of which she remains the artistic director.

Michaela Martin, winner of the 1982 Indianapolis Violin Competition, plays in the ensemble, as does Swedish-Danish cellist Andreas Brantelid (born in 1987), the multiple prize-winning clarinettist Shirley Brill, and Israeli Guy Eshed, solo flautist with the Maggio Musicale Florentino and Berlin Staatskapelle.

They all represent the new, high flying generation of instrumental soloists.

Here they perform the works of Viennese Classical style and Viennese modernity from the turn of the last century, the second Viennese school.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

ENTRIES IN THE GUEST BOOK OF LISZT ACADEMY (Gﾃ。OR TAKﾃ，S-NAGY, MIKHAIL PLETNEV, Brad Mehldau, Steve Reich)

Our Own Kobayashi “I am a fish in those waters which we call music. But a big fish or a little one? That is for posterity to decide.”

So said János Ferencsik, the legendary conductor of the State Concert Orchestra (today the National Philharmonic). He lived not with music but in music. A few years after his death, an artist inherited his “baton” about whom we sense the same. We do not understand his mother tongue but we read his movements: he is our Kobayashi, who believes his soul derives not just from Japan but also Hungary.

In 1974 half the country was watching the premiere classical musical talent contest of the era, the International Conducting Competition of Hungarian Television. People tended to understand conducting as deeply as they understood football – how beautiful it was! The triumphant young conductor, Kenichiro Kobayashi, enchanted the viewers. I was only 9 years old at the time but well remember the enthusiasm that surrounded him, his humble bow, his hair, his smile, his every essence, all of which suggested that this flood of Hungarian love had struck him quite unexpectedly.

Next year it will be 40 years since the Kobayashi cult was born in Hungary.

“Here at the Liszt Academy, tears come to the eyes of some of our teachers when they hear his name,” said the rector, András Batta last year, when they bestowed the 72-year-old conductor the title of honorary teacher. Kenichiro Kobayashi – nicknamed Kobaken – even now sleeps for two hours before every concert and maintains his condition playing golf, but his intellectual vitality is retained through his love of shogi, or Japanese chess, which he can play in his head without the board.

We now associate the province of Fukushima with the recent sad environmental catastrophe – but this is where Kobaken was born. His parents wanted to bring him up as an athlete, but then he was given a record of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. The music made a huge impression on him.

As he said, “the overwhelming love of Beethoven” propelled him to the Tokyo University of the Arts. His international career as a conductor was launched in Budapest but we did not let him go far away. Ferencsik took him on as his assistant. In 1987 Kobayashi became the chief conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra, and from 1992 he was its chief music director, a post he retained until 1997. Although he then departed, his appointment as eternal conductor cemented the relationship for a lifetime.

During his ten fruitful years of collaboration with the State Symphony Orchestra, he gave over five hundred fantastic concerts, primarily unforgettable performances of Romantic and early 20th century works.

“The decisive role was played by Kobayashi's talent as a conductor, his astonishingly faultless concentration for an hour and half, his masterly gift for creating a bond with musicians and music, his infinite flexibility, sensitivity to colour and spiritual beauty which flooded towards us from the interpretation,” wrote the famous music critic György Kroó after a Mahler concert. And the audience still celebrates him with infinite homage even today, however many times he visits Hungary to conduct. And we hope he will come many times in the future.

This is our Kobayashi. Like a fish in water, he lives in music. A small fish or a large one? That is for posterity to decide. But one thing is for sure, he is a golden fish!

Márton Devich

68

Thursday 3 April 2014 / 19.00

Friday 4 April 2014 / 19.00

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi & MÁV Symphony Orchestra Rossini: Barber of Seville – Overture Kodály: Dances of Galánta Berlioz: Symphony Fantastique MÁV Symphony Orchestra Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi (conductor)

Ken-ichiro kobayashi © gábor fejér

Talent Oblige!

Péter Kiss & Péter Szűcs Saint-Saëns: Clarinet Sonata in E flat major, op. 167 Brahms: Clarinet Sonata in E flat major, op. 120/2 Schumann: Fantasy pieces, op. 73 Debussy: The Isle of Joy Debussy: Rhapsody for Clarinet and Piano

When Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi won the 1st international conducting competition of Hungarian Radio and Television in 1974, besides endearing himself to the general public, the country also learned to appreciate in an analytical way the performance of a conductor.

It was immediately obvious that Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi was capable of conveying in a remarkable manner the emotional pulse of Romantic music and the twists and turns of its mysterious tales. Even then it was possible to discern that he would be able to conduct, for instance, Berlioz music as if it were his own. This has since proved to be true. Kobayashi has never concealed the fact that he revels in the orchestral tones, living together and breathing with the rhythms.

Péter Kiss (piano) Péter Szűcs (clarinet)

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

This new Liszt Academy Concert Centre series has been devised in the ardent hope that it will become a tradition.

Every six months it offers several Liszt Academy students or groups the opportunity to display their musical wares. The performers on this, the fourth such event, will be the established duo of Péter Kiss and Péter Szűcs. Both are consummate and profound artists and true spiritual descendants of Liszt, the eternal seeker of the new. Both are dedicated interpreters of contemporary music – they perform in a number of contemporary music ensembles – but today they are presenting works from the classical repertoire.

69

Monday 7 April 2014 / 19.30

Tuesday 8 April 2014 / 19.00

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

Chamber Music – Tuned for Grand Hall Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Dénes Várjon

Acoustic, Authentic Mihály Dresch & Balázs Vizeli Two Preeminent Artists, One Stage

Schumann: Fantasy Pieces, op. 88 Chopin: Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, op. 65 Schumann: Sonata for Violin and Piano in A minor, op. 105 Mendelssohn: Piano Trio in D minor, op. 49

Frequently seen on the Hungarian concert stage, Dénes Várjon requires little introduction: he has many fine recordings to his name and he is a true globetrotter of a musician who still gives classes at his alma mater, the Liszt Academy. British cellist Steven Isserlis is an old chamber partner of Dénes Várjon, and he is as well known for his unmistakable cello sound as for his fascination with chamber music.

The outwardly relaxed yet deeply committed and exquisitely talented American violinist Joshua Bell is a genuine world star. He was last in Hungary with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, of which he is music director. These three play works

by Robert Schumann, pieces that are particularly important to Dénes Várjon, and Chopin’s only sonata for cello and piano, as well as one of the most popular chamber works by Mendelssohn.

On hearing this latter work, Schumann referred to his fellow composer as the Mozart of the 19th century.

On hearing the name Mihály Dresch, the first thing that comes to mind is perfect genre synthesis and the inimitable “Dresch saxophone sound” that enriches Hungarian jazz with folk music motifs. In this performance he is joined by Balázs Vizeli, an authoritative artist in the area of early Hungarian folk music, to explore their common ground of authentic vernacular music. Their association began in the second half of the 1980s when the folk dance ensemble of Semmelweis Medical University (SOTE) asked them to provide musical accompaniment to a Romanian dance choreography. At that time, playing folk music on such a novel instrument as the saxophone, and what’s more, playing in a stylistically authentic way, was considered a daring innovation. The next important meeting in the lives of these two artists is associated with the Rendhagyó prímástalálkozó, a “folk music festival orchestra”. The music of Mihály Dresch and Balázs Vizeli is characterized by a respect for tradition and creative performance art. However, the composition-interpretation dynamic we are used to in classical music performances is different here: during the concert at least as much creative energy is released as in the preceding phase.

Tickets: HUF 7 900, 6 500, 4 800 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Joshua Bell (violin) Steven Isserlis (cello) Dénes Várjon (piano)

Steven Isserlis © satoshi aoyagi

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Mihály Dresch (saxophone, recorder); Balázs Vizeli (violin); Gabriella Tintér (vocals, gardon); László Mester (viola); Gergő Szabó Csobán (double bass)

Unmade © Balázs Máté

Action and Adrenalin

joshua bell © bill phelps 72

He plays the violin as if fighting for his life. He says he plays because he wants to make an impact, to convince others. Indifference is the worst thing that can happen to a musician. People pester him because of his exterior; he is compared to Hugh Grant and is viewed sometimes as if still a child, and yet he has passed the half-way mark of an average life.

Joshua David Bell was born on 9 December 1967 in Bloomington, Indiana. Both his parents were psychologists and yet he was raised on a farm with horses and chickens. Nature remains important for him even today, but he loves New York where he has lived for years, close to Carnegie Hall. But only when he is at home: each year he gives over 200 concerts across the world.

Yet his home is still important for him. Bell designed and furnished his New York flat with great care. On the walls of the music room hang old photographs which he inherited from his first teacher, Josef Gingold. He was surrounded by images of Hubermann, Heifetz and Ysaÿe in his childhood music lessons. “There is something magical if when practising, Ysaÿe's gaze fixes upon you,” he said in an interview with Arte television years ago. “I had exceptionally supportive parents which every child greatly needs. My mother played the piano, and music very much brought us together. Furthermore, my mother loves challenges – she plays just about every kind of sport – and this attitude is very handy in my profession.

My mother is Jewish, but religion did not really play a role in my life.

Even though my father was originally a pastor, at a decisive moment in his life he vowed he would never set foot in a church again. He did not want to bring us up in a religious spirit. For me, music became religion.

I do believe that there exists something of a higher power, something more sublime. This is particularly true when you listen to Bach, sooner or later you start to believe in God.” He received his first violin at the age of 4, and at 14 won the joint competition of Seventeen Magazine and General Motors, bringing him national popularity. In that same year he gave his first concert with a major orchestra, no less than the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti.

In 1998 he gained wider general recognition with his recording of the Oscar-winning score by John Corigliano for the film The Red Violin, and in 2004 he supplied the violin sound in the concert scenes for the concert violinist protagonist of the film Ladies in Lavender. In 2007 an experiment by the Washington Post stirred controversy: Bell busked at the entrance to a subway station as people hurried to work and virtually no one noticed that they were hearing the playing of a world class musician on a Stradivarius worth many millions of dollars. The Post journalist received a Pulitzer Prize for the article.

Bell's violin, a so-called Gibson ex Hubermann, dates from 1713. In 1936 it assumed centre stage in a detective story when someone stole it from Bronisław Huberman's dressing room at Carnegie Hall. (Incidentally, it had been stolen once before in 1919, but Huberman managed to recover it successfully within three days.) The mystery of 1936 remained unsolved

for nearly fifty years and the police could not track down the thief. It was only in 1985 when Julian Altman confessed on his death bed to his wife.

Altman was a member of the National Symphony Orchestra and had played on the stolen violin for years without anyone realising what a unique instrument it was. Bell has been playing it since 2001. He bought it for four million dollars but since then its value has increased many times. It was love at first bow! He never again played on his old violin even though that too was a Stradivarius. Somewhere he said that if he had to part with the Huberman, he would grieve like someone mourning the death of a beloved dog with whom he had lived for years.

Action and adrenalin – he stated once –, these are the two things that shape his life. The constant challenge, the continuous manifestation before the audience, can become a kind of dependence; it can function like a drug against which one must defend. So Bell does yoga and meditation, seeking the opportunity for relaxation lest the constant turmoil eventually damage his health.

But naturally things are now slowing down given that since the 2011/12 season he has been the artistic director of the Academy of St. Martin-inthe-Fields. He continues a noble tradition: the founder of the ensemble, Sir Neville Marriner, and his successor, Iona Brown, both ascended to the conductor's podium as violin virtuosi and even conducted the ensemble with the instrument in their hands. In the case of the classical repertoire, it is not unusual for the soloist to be the orchestral leader; however, it is not generally the case with the romantic concertos written for a large orchestra.

According to Joshua Bell, the secret is for there to be an orchestra which the soloist-conductor blindly trusts. A performance of the Brahms violin concerto totally engages the soloist and thus they cannot really instruct the orchestra. But the important things happen in rehearsal. Everything that occurs on stage is the consequence of an intensive rehearsal period.

A good orchestra can then cope without a conductor. Nonetheless, it is a great help for his fellow musicians that Bell accompanies his own playing with intensive body language. The public would not believe just how much each gesture communicates to the attentive orchestra.

“I did not start conducting to conform to the expectations of the critics,” he said in an interview. “I would like to create something that enchants me as well. For me, violin playing and conducting are not two separate trades. I am a musician. That is my profession.”

József Kling

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Tuesday 8 April 2014 / 19.30

Wednesday 9 April 2014 / 19.00

Friday 11 April 2014 / 19.00

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

MÁV Symphony Orchestra Weber: Der Freischütz – Overture Bruch: Violin Concerto in G minor, op. 26 Karl Jenkins: Sarikiz Tchaikovsky: Italian Capriccio, op. 45 Marat Bisengaliev (violin) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Gergely Madaras (conductor)

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Rezső Ott: Elle éternelle (premiere) Korngold: Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35 Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D major (“Titan”) Kristóf Baráti (violin) Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Guido Mancusi (conductor) Italian-Austrian conductor Guido Mancusi, one-time assistant to Riccardo Muti and Ádám Fischer, who in 1991 was awarded a Mozart Medal for the best Mozart performance, takes to the stage of the Liszt Academy at the head of the Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra to perform a special programme. The concert comprises a new work by bassoon player and composer Rezső Ott, who graduated only a few years ago, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, which also premiered in Budapest. During the 1930s Korngold was one of the most sought-after composers in Hollywood, and he wrote the Violin Concerto in 1945 partly to deflect the critical distain that was coming his way. The lush Romantic piece dedicated to Alma, widow of Mahler, was debuted by Jasha Heifetz in 1947 and remains his most popular work to this day. It will be played by the young Kristóf Baráti.

Tickets: HUF 4 500, 3 900, 3 200 Organiser: Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra 74

Jazz it!

Szebényi Dániel Quintet feat. Károly Binder Modern Acoustic Jazz Dániel Szebényi (piano) Gergő Varga (saxophone) Mihály Gotthard (guitar) Dávid Kovács (bass guitar) Péter Laskai (drums) Guest: Károly Binder (piano) Once upon a time there was a small boy who started playing the piano, then he shifted over to the organ, and finally dedicated himself to jazz piano. It is not easy to imagine what may come next, but Dániel Szebényi is almost certainly going to stay close to music after showing himself to be a born artist from a very early age. Jazz exploded into his life a few years ago while he was studying jazz piano at the Liszt Academy. He could equally have decided to go with rock or metal because he performed in such bands from the age of 14. The Szebényi Dániel Quintet have invited Károly Binder, head of the jazz department, to be guest soloist, although we don’t have to worry that the presence of “teacher” will inhibit any of the ensemble. The fact is everyone’s perfectly at home in modern acoustic jazz.

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Marat Bisengaliev is a most remarkable and hugely original musician. Naturally, his career has gained momentum from picking up awards at international competitions, but he has courted even more attention for bucking the modern performance style, instead playing music in the spirit of the ideal of a century earlier. According to an American critic, Bisengaliev has all the components to make him a latter-day Ysaÿe. The New York Times believes Bisengaliev “...has taken to heart a style of playing that was a hallmark of violin virtuosity early in the century...” His Budapest concert of Bruch’s violin concerto and Karl Jenkins’s work Sarikiz, written for the virtuoso violinist, includes Gergely Madaras, a young conductor who is increasingly seen on the international podium.

gergely Madaras © Balázs Böröcz

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Saturday 12 April 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 12 April 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 13 April 2014 / 11.00

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Kodály Philharmonia Debrecen Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 S.244/2 Kodály: Dances of Galánta János Vajda: Cantus Firmus – A megtartó ének (Budapest premiere) (World premiere: 11 April 2014, Debrecen)

On The Spot – Department of Vocal Studies Richard Strauss 150 Songs by Richard Strauss Featuring students from the Liszt Academy Vocal Faculty Richard Strauss, one of the most important opera composers in classical music, was born 150 years ago, and few before or since have understood the human voice so well. The Vocal Faculty of the Liszt Academy, directed

by Andrea Meláth, conjures up Strauss the songwriter in this gala concert.

The songs of Strauss were composed in the last decade of the 19th century and the first of the 20th and they can be regarded as the culmination of Romantic song literature. As a true man of the theatre, Strauss was initially less concerned with the quality of the texts; instead he required scenes and metaphors that were exciting and fired the imagination. Only later did he begin to set verses by the great poets to music.

With his characteristically infinite invention and sensitivity, Strauss recreated the dramatic genius of his operas in these miniature masterpieces, each of which is just a few minutes long.

Tickets are free and can be obtained from the ticket office in the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Péter Balczó (tenor) Zoltán Bátki Fazekas (baritone) Lautitia Children's Choir (choir director: József Nemes); Kodály Choir Debrecen (choir director: Zoltán Pad); Kodály Philharmonic Debrecen Conductor: Dániel Somogyi-Tóth

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Crime and Punishment Zoltán Kovács: Symphony No. 1 Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Host and Conductor: Gábor Hollerung

In 2013 the Kodály Philharmonic Debrecen won the Ferenc Kölcsey bursary, which is awarded annually by the Debrecen city assembly for the premiere of a new work of music constructed in the traditions of the “Rome of Calvinism.” In 2014 it took the heritage of the 476-year-old Reformed College as its basis. The basic concept was to keep the alternative texts written to the melodies of the Reformed Song Book, which can be found in the archive of the Reformed College of Debrecen, thus retaining the original musical material with all its great traditions.

Kossuth Prize-winning composer and distinguished teacher at the Liszt Academy, János Vajda, one of the best known and most popular of living Hungarian composers, was commissioned to write the music.

Vajda has strong ties with Debrecen: one of his most recent premieres took place at a concert celebrating the 150th anniversary of institutional music education in Debrecen, and he recently bequeathed his entire oeuvre to the Reformed College of Debrecen.

In this latest in our Understandable Music series, the supreme narrator and conductor Gábor Hollerung guides the audience into the mysteries of another contemporary work. Zoltán Kovács, who graduated from Emil Petrovics's class in the composer's faculty of the Liszt Academy in 1993, is also known as a bassoonist: for years he played in the Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra. His Symphony No. 1 was premiered in 2001, but as far as its musical style is concerned, it could have been written a hundred years earlier. And even if it had been, the piece would certainly have held its own against other works of the era, such is the composer's skill. Kovács’s symphony, jam packed with Mahler, Richard Strauss, Brucker, Tchaikovsky and a million other reminiscences, would silence even the sternest opponent of the postmodern school of composers, who revel in dipping into the past; the beauty of the work and Zoltán Kovács's technical skill are simply breathtaking. The four movements tell the story of St Agnes of Rome in the language of 19th century programme music, and as a critic wrote at its world premiere, “there is not a moment in this work which we do not sense as inspired.”

Tickets: HUF 2 100, 1 800, 1 500 Organiser: Kodály Philharmonia Debrecen

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 1 800, 1 200 Organiser: Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra 75

Sunday 13 April 2014 / 11.00

Sunday 13 April 2014 / 15.30

Tuesday 15 April 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Liszt Kidz Academy Music and Sport For 10–15-year-olds Works by J. S. Bach and Handel

Amongst schoolchildren there are always a number who are into maths, some literature buffs, and some budding historians. Of course, these various subcultures are not totally isolated from one another, and when it comes to music crossing between them is especially easy. As music has a connection to everything, it reveals as much about maths as it does about literature, art or sport. The youth series of the Liszt Academy, that is, the four concerts in the Chamber Hall arranged within the framework of the Liszt Kidz Academy, venture into the latter four subjects, and the third in the series examines the connections between music and sport. Who beats who in the context of a concert? Does a keyboard musician have to train their fingers? What is teamwork in music? This concert for 10–15-year-old students seeks answers to these and similar questions, during which Concerto Armonico, under the baton of Miklós Spányi, play Bach and Händel works with an intensity sufficient to shame any athlete.

Ede Zathuerczky (1903-1959) was a student of the legendary Hubay and is regarded as one of the finest violinists and most influent teachers of the 20th century. He was one of Bartók's chamber music partners and director of the Liszt Academy between 1943 and 1957, and many of his students became internationally renowned. From 1957 he taught as an émigré at Bloomington University in the USA, and like Bartók died unexpectedly in the New World.

Initiated by the widow of Ede Zathureczky with the offer of the famous violinist’s Ruggieri violin and Sartory bow, an internal competition was founded within the Liszt Academy in 1984 in which only those violinists who received top marks from each examiner in their final examinations can enter.

The competition is staged every four years and the winner of the first prize can use Zathureczky's own violin until the next competition. In 1998 Professor Emerita Eszter Perényi initiated the National Zathureczky competition for primary and secondary music school students and music university students, which is organized for four age groups and held every 5 years. This year winners in both competitions will receive their prizes at the joint gala concert held in the Solti Hall.

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 500 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Márta Ábrahám (violin); János Bálint (flute); Miklós Spányi (harpsichord) Concerto Armonico Budapest (artistic director: Miklós Spányi) Host: Gergely Fazekas

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Gala Concert of the Fourth National Ede Zathureczky Commemorative Competition

Black and White Colours Gergely Bogányi in the Liszt Academy III Mozart: Sonata in A major (K. 331) Debussy: Suite Bergamasque Debussy: The Isle of Joy Chopin: Nocturne in B major, op. 9/3 Chopin: Waltz in B minor, op. 69/2 Chopin: Sonata in B minor, op. 58 Gergely Bogányi (piano) The music of Mozart and Chopin, or Chopin and Debussy. How many times have we found that they match one another in the most natural of ways?

The phenomenal Lívia Rév encapsulates the dilemma of compiling a suitable piano concert programme thus: “I thought long and hard about what to prepare and in the end Mozart and Chopin remained.

Alongside them all other composers are vacuous and waffle.” Gergely Bogányi would similarly be delighted to assemble concert programmes solely from works by these two masters. Equally, one needs only to refer to the nocturnes or preludes to illustrate the strong links that exist between the music of Debussy and Chopin. “Sooner or later, and preferably sooner, every pianist comes up against Chopin,” says Gergely Bogányi.

“However, my enthusiasm for the composer was so great that I decided to learn all his works.”

Tickets: HUF 6 500, 5 400, 3 800 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

The Piano Recital When the editor-in-chief of the concert magazine asked me to write about the traditions of piano recitals at the Liszt Academy, he granted me permission to be subjective. Nothing more was needed: gone was the objectivity of the music historian!

Whenever I hear the words “piano recital” or read them somewhere, four decades of memories from the Liszt Academy Grand Hall swarm before my eyes. For the time being, I can still see the old brown wall paint, recall the oak yellow podium, the faint and warmer toned lighting, the threadbare and creaking seats, the characteristically groaning floor, and feel the boiling heat from April until November. I will need to attend the beautifully renovated hall a few more times before this image is rewritten in my head.

The venue for a piano recital for me is – and I'm being perfectly prejudiced – the Liszt Academy. What else can I say? True, I have had a great many experiences elsewhere; indeed my first true “imprinting” came at the Erkel Theatre with Richter's Schubert recital in 1973. And yet, for me, the Liszt Academy has become the holy shrine. According to my unrealistic reflex response (which they call a “pinched nerve” these days), a true piano recital cannot be held anywhere else. So what that I heard Cziffra at the Vigadó?

Or Kocsis's solo recital at the Budapest Congress Center, Ránki at the MTA Congress Hall in the castle and later Schiff at the MTA Headquarters with Chain Bridge in the background? So what that I have been at every magnificent Palace of Arts evening over the past eight years, when world stars have seated themselves behind the piano? And I have mentioned only a few of those great halls and unforgettable concerts: I could mention countless others both in Hungary and beyond. Having said all that, at least until the recent restoration, there were also some less well-working aspects of the Grand Hall for piano recitals; for example, the less-than-satisfactory acoustics experienced in the first few rows of the central aisle on the ground floor, on the side balconies or even from the organ seats, which for a particularly popular concert would be given over to seating. In terms of being able to see the stage, the side balconies were far from ideal from the second row upwards.

As an adult, I don't now believe the children's story that there are NOT ghosts living in the walls. They do indeed live there and the Liszt Academy is the best proof of it. They move in, obviously following the path of the sound vibrations, and stay there. I mean, Dohnányi and Bartók gave solo recitals here. What sort of vibration is it that would dare to leave after that?

True, Liszt was unable to play in the hall, only in its “legal predecessor”, but his shadow nonetheless emerges between the columns at piano recitals – and hopefully at other times. How could it not, since it was Liszt who created the genre. On 5 March 1839 in Rome, at the Palazzo Poli, behind the Fontana di Trevi, at one of Prince Dmitri Galitzin's evenings, for the very first time someone dared to give an entire concert filled by a single piano. Liszt did not require anything else, no singer, chamber music collaborator or orchestra.

“Musikalischen Soliloquien” – musical monologues –, which is how he himself characterised the genre. Liszt can never be accused of false modesty, and with a “chivalrous gesture” turned towards the audience and, paraphrasing Louis XIV, declared: “Le concert, c'est moi!” The concert itself was a series of paraphrases: from Rossini (William Tell) to Bellini (I Puritani), and on themes submitted by the audience. But there were also virtuosic études and other “fragments”. “Unbridled egotism,” echoed the contemporary press. It is hard for path-breakers. Today we think of the bravery of the soloists, their loneliness, being at the mercy of themselves, conditions, inspiration, memory, the audience and the instrument. Because for many years now, solo recitals have not been about virtuosic self-display but are the most intimate existing form of expression, the most profound revelations and confessions.

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Dezső Ránki & Zoltán Kocsis (1972) © ÉVA KELETI/MTI

The Piano Recital

For me, this is the attraction of piano recitals (or other solo instrumental concerts, which sadly are rare). For this reason, I feel that the ghosts most often venture out of their hiding places during piano recitals. Sometimes their presence is almost tangible and we can see them inviting the latest most deserving vibrations to join them. From my collection of piano recital memories of the past four decades, a few instances come to mind when the spirits did indeed emerge. For example, when Annie Fischer gave her Beethoven cycle, playing all the sonatas for the 1977 bicentenary year.

Or once later when Annie Fischer again played Chopin's Piano Sonata in B flat minor. In the three sets of eight bars that make up the central D flat major section of the funeral march, the spirits truly burst from the walls, entwined themselves around the piano, waltzed around Annie Fischer's famous hair bun, and refused to vanish back to their places.

But the spirits could not enjoy a relaxed evening during Richter's concerts either. On one evening, so many people crammed into Mayakovsky Street that the trolley bus could not run and for half an hour, the crowd chanting his name: “Rich-ter, Rich-ter". Richter would have let them in but there was no room for a single additional hair in the hall (will they ever allow us to stand alongside the walls, in double lines again?). Every note Richter played was magic, an irreducible mixture of expectation, legend, positive prejudice and reality. The ghosts Richter left behind will have no language difficulties conversing with those bequeathed by Emil Gilels, but they would probably be able to make themselves understood to those of Perrahia and Brendel as well. And just what dances of the spirits occurred here thanks to native Hungarian artists. I hope that despite his promise otherwise, András Schiff will one day have a look at the newly-painted black-gold walls, because he is also on first name terms with those that live there and will be able to communicate with them through his playing.

Part of the special magic of piano recitals, which of course can be achieved in any other type of musical performance, is that that the ghosts do not just nest in the walls but also in people's souls. It was a slightly expanded solo recital when the Klukon-Ránki duo first performed Liszt's transcription of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, on 6 March 1999. Then I learned that music does have a direct physiological effect which for years can either fill or enervate one's energy reserves. On 4 January 2004 Zoltán Kocsis gave a solo recital featuring primarily romantic composers: possibly that was the last solo concert he gave here. But it left a different kind of lifelong impression on me. First, it caused several days of complete silence.

My heart told me I shouldn't have spoken because what could I say? But it is inevitable, and at least I can try to speak differently than before.

The genre of the piano concert is not becoming extinct, but the fear that it could is not ungrounded. Song recitals have largely disappeared from the major halls and it is not as easy as it was three decades ago to attract audiences to other chamber genres, for example string quartets. I hope that Liszt's immodest idea, now nearly two centuries old, will survive for a little longer.

Of course, talking about these concerts of the past is self-serving nostalgia; it means little for those who were not present. But the Liszt Academy is different. Because their ghosts live in the walls and at any time, the younger generation can encounter them.

János Mácsai 79

Friday 18 April 2014 / 19.00

Tuesday 22 April 2014 / 19.00

Tuesday 22 April 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Piano Recital by Tamás Érdi Talent Oblige!

Péter Tornyai – A Composer's Evening Bach Concert with the MÁV Symphony Orchestra Johann Sebastian Bach: “Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft” (BWV 50) Orchestral Suite in D major (BWV 1069) Easter Oratorio (BWV 249) Orsolya Rőser (soprano); Veronika Dobi-Kiss (alto); József Mukk (tenor); András Palerdi (bass); National Choir (choral director: Mátyás Antal); MÁV Symphony Orchestra Zoltán Kocsis (conductor)

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Tornyai Péter: ...about time lines in trapeze (world premiere) solitary hallucinations On an almost inhabited island (Bali?)

4 Morpheus-fragments (Hungarian premiere) da camera (world premiere) Hölderlin-translations Éva Bodrogi (soprano); Kata Koltai (guitar); Ditta Rohmann (cello); András Szalai (dulcimer); Péter Bársony (viola); János Bali (recorder); Péter Tornyai (violin); Máté Bán (flute); Balázs Kovács (trombone) Free Voices Vocal Ensemble (artistic direction: Laura Antal) Host: Gergely Fazekas

Mozart: 12 Variations on a French Children's Song (K. 265) Beethoven: 32 Variations on an Original Theme (WoO 80) Brahms: Variations on a Hungarian Song, op. 21/2 Bartók: Improvisation on Hungarian Peasant Songs, op. 20 (BB 83) Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, op.31/2 (“The Tempest”) Schubert: Songs Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 14 in A minor (D. 784) Tamás Érdi (piano) Featuring: Erika Miklósa (soprano)

Poet János Pilinszky wrote of Bach: “He is the most modern composer of our day. Both eternal and hypermodern, or more accurately: we have the greatest need of him. In his music, in his methods there is not a drop of romanticism, nor nostalgia, no shadows or half-witted dialectic.

No pursuit, only a result! No backchat, only the current at the centre, the power of the core, the pulse. Music that is the principle of heaven, proof that there is life without conflict, indeed, that without conflict the dynamism of life is at its greatest and most exciting.”

It is as though Zoltán Kocsis’s Bach interpretations of the past few years were conceived in this spirit. On listening to the orchestral suites, one critic wrote of the “intoxicating will to live, the emanation of a virtually constant Bachian rhythm of joy.”

Péter Tornyai has performed in numerous contemporary music ensembles as a violinist and violist.

In 2013 he graduated from the composition faculty of the Liszt Academy, where he was a student of Zoltán Jeney. In 2011 he won the chamber music first prize awarded by the New Hungarian Music Forum and in 2013 he came second. In 2012 he won first prize at the Vienna Konzerthaus Towards the Next 100 Years composers' competition. “Composition is an inner need for me”, he said in an interview and, though when asked about what shaped his musical style he responded with two negatives (he is not interested in popular music influences or in postmodernist neo-romanticism), his music certainly has a positively elemental effect on both musicians and audiences.

“I have a special relationship with the Liszt Academy Grand Hall. Who knows whether I would be here now if I had not received words of encouragement from György Kroó after my first Liszt Academy appearance when I was very young? His critique gave me lifelong encouragement, but I also received strength to defeat the impossible.”

The words of visually impaired pianist Tamás Érdi, who at 33 is a winner of the Prima Primissima prize and recipient of the Hungarian Order of the Knight's Cross. “In the first half of the concert we pass through variations by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms to reach Bartók Improvisations. Following the break, I close off the pulsating vibrations of the first half with two marvellous sonatas.” Between the Beethoven Sonata in D minor, sometimes named after Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and the Schubert sonata written in 1823, Tamás Erdi performs chamber music, accompanying Kossuth and Liszt Prizewinning singer Erika Miklós in a selection of Schubert songs.

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Pentaton Concert Agency

Wednesday 23 April 201 / 19.00

Wednesday 23 April 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Song recitals aT the Liszt Academy Júlia Hajnóczy & Szabolcs Brickner “Poets and Lovers” Schumann: The Poet’s Love, op. 48 Schumann: Six Songs, op. 107 Beethoven: Adelaide, op. 46 Beethoven: Song of Penitence, op. 48/6 Beethoven: The Kiss, op. 128 Schubert: Erlkönig (D. 328) Dominick Argento: Six Elizabethan Songs Júlia Hajnóczy (soprano) Szabolcs Brickner (tenor) Dóra Bizják (piano

júlia Hajnóczy

Óbuda Danubia Orchestra Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, op. 37 Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E minor, op. 39 Tamás Vásáry (piano) Óbudai Danubia Orchestra Conductor: Máté Hámori

Júlia Hajnóczy and Szabolcs Brickner have partnered each other on stage as Juliet and Romeo in Gounod’s opera, Pamina and Tamino in Mozart’s Magic Flute, and Iluska and János Vitéz in Pongrác Kacsóh’s play. We do not know the extent to which their performance in these stage productions is helped by the fact that they are a couple in real life. However, Szabolcs Brickner has revealed that “this is the most wonderful thing I can imagine. There is between us a special energy that others simply could not generate. When I perform with her the feelings do not have to be acted out but merely shown. Our work ethic is the same, we do everything seriously and immerse ourselves in everything.” Whether they will have a chance to do this in Beethoven’s arietta The Kiss is unknown as yet, but the magic word “kiss” is certainly pronounced six times.

The Óbuda Danubia Orchestra is celebrating its 20th season and has invited the doyen of Hungarian pianists, internationally celebrated Tamás Vásáry, to be the soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto in C minor in this concert. Written in 1800, the concerto bears all the stylistic hallmarks of a change of style, or as his patron Count Waldstein expressed it: “Beethoven taking on the spirit of Mozart from the hands of Haydn.”

And Beethoven here finds his own voice. The ensemble will be conducted by the young Máté Hámori, who has worked alongside Vásáry as his conductor-assistant, as well as with numerous Hungarian symphonic orchestras. As an organiser and participant in youth concerts, he has assumed an active role in developing the audiences of the future. In the second half of the concert, he conducts Sibelius's Symphony No. 1.

Tickets: HUF 3 200, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 3 100, 2 400, 1 700, 1 000 Organiser: Óbuda Danubia Nonprofit Kft.

szabolcs Brickner

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Thursday 24 April 2014 / 19.30

Friday 25 April 2014 / 19.30

Saturday 26 April 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Erzsébet Szőnyi at 90 Opening Concert of the International Music Education Symposium Erzsébet Szőnyi: 21 Singing Game Children's Choral Music on Poems by Ernő Hárs Six Medieval Hymns Petrarca-sonnets Prayer on Evening Belltoll Frühzeitiger Frühling Anacreontic Song The Zoltán Kodály Hungarian Choir School Gaudete, Laudate and Jubilate choruses; Musica Nostra Female Choir, Budapest; Monteverdi Choir Conductors: Éva Kollár, Zsuzsánna Mindszenty, Ferenc Sapszon In 2014 Erszébet Szőnyi, legendary figure of 20th century Hungarian composition and music pedagogy, celebrates her 90th birthday. She studied with Kodály and Weiner, and graduated from the class of János Viski at the Liszt Academy in 1947, earning a degree in composing. She is celebrated for numerous important textbooks and for an exceptional oeuvre in which vocal music plays a prominent role: for Erzsébet Szőnyi, the Hungarian language is the axis about which her own musical universe revolves. This birthday concert will feature a selection from her finest choral works, performed by her students and spiritual grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Tickets: HUF 1 000, 500 Organiser: Association of Hungarian Choirs, Orchestras and Folk Ensembles (KÓTA); Liszt Academy Concert Centre 82

Zoltán Kocsis & Hungarian National Philharmonic Haydn: Symphony No. 82 in C major (“The Bear”) Beethoven: Piano Concerto in C major, op. 15 Schubert: Five German Dances, D.90 Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major (“Jupiter” K. 551) Zoltán Fejérvári (piano) Hungarian National Philharmonic Zoltán Kocsis (conductor) All the works in this concert featuring the Hungarian National Philharmonic are played in C major and are separated by just a few years. “The Bear,” one of Haydn’s popular Paris symphonies, dates from 1786, Mozart’s unsurpassed Jupiter Symphony is from 1788, Beethoven’s youthfully dynamic Piano Concerto in C major was written in 1797, and the Schubert cycle with two dances in the C major key is from 1813.

We might suppose that Zoltán Kocsis is serving up a highly concentrated Viennese style, but the truth is that rarely are four works so totally different from each other performed at a single concert. Soloist in the Beethoven concerto is a hugely talented individual from the youngest generation of pianists, Zoltán Fejérvári, who has raised eyebrows with splendid performances of such notoriously complex piano works as the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Bartók, György Ligeti’s Piano Concerto and the solo piano arrangement of Petrushka by Stravinsky.

Tickets: HUF 6 500, 5 400, 3 800 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Dezső Ránki & Concerto Budapest Ives: The Unanswered Question László Vidovszky: Orchestrion (premiere) Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 54 Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A major, op. 90 (“Italian”) Dezső Ránki (piano) Concerto Budapest András Keller (conductor) Concerto Budapest, resident orchestra of the Liszt Academy, bring forth a concert idea that is unusual to say the least. Their exciting programme comprises two Romantic hits, a contemporary world premiere, and a composition by an American composer little known in Hungary. The new work, Orchestrion, is by László Vidovszky, who celebrates his 70th birthday in 2014 and is a former student and current professor of the Liszt Academy. After this world premiere there is a significant jump back in time to the world of German Romanticism and the highly popular Piano Concerto in A minor by Robert Schumann, under the inspired piano solo care of Dezső Ránki. The concert programme concludes with the “Italian” Symphony No. 4 written by a 24-year-old Mendelssohn in 1833 in a bright and sunny mood befitting its name.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Concerto Budapest

www.mrze.hu

MR Symphony Orchestra MR Choir MR Children's Choir

Sunday 27 April 2014 / 19.30

Tuesday 29 April 2014 / 19.30

Friday 2 May 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Andrea Meláth & Junge Deutsch-Französische Philharmonie Richard Strauss 150 Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs Metamorphosen Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30 Andrea Meláth (soprano) Junge Deutsch-Französische Philharmonie Nicolaus Richter (conductor) Over the past few years the Junge Deutsch-Französische Philharmonie, now over a quarter of a century old and conducted by Nicolaus Richter, director of the Bayreuth Municipal School of Music, have participated in numerous dramatic productions.

The conductor has close associations with the Liszt Academy and, naturally, the music of Ferenc Liszt. During Liszt Year (2011), Richter conducted Don Sanche, an opera written by Liszt in his youth, in Miskolc and Bayreuth; he was also instrumental in seeing that the choir and orchestra of the Liszt Academy were able to perform Liszt’s monumental oratorio Christ in Bayreuth. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss, the Junge Deutsch-Französische Philharmonie bring emblematic pieces from the master’s oeuvre to Budapest, including the last work he ever composed, the movingly beautiful Four Last Songs, with soprano solo by Andrea Meláth, head of the Liszt Academy’s Department of Vocal Studies.

Tickets: HUF 3 200, 2 100, 1 300 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 84

Cyprien Katsaris & the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra J. S. Bach: Piano Concerto in D major (BWV 1054) Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major (K. 467) Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé – suite No. 2 Cyprien Katsaris (piano) Győr Philharmonic Orchestra Kálmán Berkes (conductor) Greek-French pianist Cyprien Katsaris graduated in Paris and debuted at the age of 15 with Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasy in the French capital. In 1974 he won the International György Cziffra Competition, since when he has been a sought-after guest at the world’s greatest concert halls. He has visited Hungary on several occasions. This time he performs piano concertos by Bach and Mozart in the company of the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Kálmán Berkes. In the second half the spotlight turns to works of the early 20 th century that look back to a distant past: the two astonishingly rich Ravel pieces conjure up images of Rococo France and the Greece of antiquity – all in the Art Nouveau Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy.

Tickets: HUF 7 900, 5 900, 4 900 Organiser: Győr Philharmonic Orchestra

Beyond Music...

Tamás Vásáry Musical Conversations IV/3 Bartók Béla Hungarian Radio Choir (acting choral director: Gábor Oláh); Symphony Orchestra of the Hungarian Radio Lecturer, conductor and piano accompaniment: Tamás Vásáry “What distinguishes his musical personality is the absolutely unique combination of elemental primitiveness and the most highly developed culture.

His music is of a single material, closed within itself, a unified organization, with virtually no trace of imitation.”

These are the words of Zoltán Kodály on Béla Bartók, published in the journal Nyugat on the occasion of the world premiere of Bluebeard’s Castle. The audience no longer sees Bartók’s music as a seven-gate castle, wrote Kodály in the same publication, although many of us still need expert guidance to initiate us into the oeuvre of Bartók. Thus we are lucky enough to have such an insightful, sympathetic artist as Kossuth laureate Tamás Vásáry, former assistant to Kodály, as our guide on this occasion.

Tickets: HUF 3 500, 2 800, 2 000, 1 500 Student and concession tickets: HUF 2 500, 2 000, 1 400, 1 000 Organiser: Hungarian Radio Music Ensembles

Test strip © péter Puklus

The Russian Secret Top quality music teaching accessible to wider circles has been in existence on Russian soil for one hundred and fifty years. In September 1862 the superb pianist and composer Nikolai Grigorevich Rubinstein, with the patronage of Yelena Pavlovna Romanova, created the St Petersburg Conservatoire, which since 1944 has born the name of one of its first great teachers, Nikolai RimskyKorsakov. Just four years later in 1866 Nikolai's brother Anton founded a similar institution in the other great cultural centre of the country, Moscow. From 1859 they aimed to offer a structural framework for Russian musical performance art. The objective of this institutional supervision was nothing less than the creation of the necessary conditions for a professional musical career.

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Looking back from the present, we can safely assert that those initial expectations have been fulfilled many times over, because Russia has since bequeathed a whole series of great artists, both composers and performers, to the world. Merely listing the great names who have left a permanent legacy as practising musicians or teachers would scarcely get us any closer to the secret behind Russian musical successes, to what it is that makes the music and musicians of geographically the largest nation on earth (even after the break-up of the Soviet Union), with its thousands of peoples and diverse cultural heritage, just so remarkable.

What is the common denominator that links generations travelling different paths in terms of age, region, instrument and style? What has given the one hundred and fifty years of Russian music education its essence?

From whichever direction we approach these extremely delicate questions, we reach similar conclusions. These conclusions relate to the concept of tradition: tradition among Russians does not, in the first instance, mean a collection of compulsory rules for the ensuing generation, but rather brilliant individuals acquiring an attitude and sense of mission. More than one expert on Russian music history has argued that during their student years young students from St Petersburg and Moscow (and later, from Kiev, Kazan and all the other cities) are trained primarily to be artistically independent, to develop a profound understanding of music theory and history, a unique wide general taste and a burning love of the profession.

It was no different at the turn of the previous century, which heralded one of the first series of successful eras in Russian music, one that was all the more remarkable given that the three best known and perhaps most “exportable” musicians were all pianist composers. We hardly have to stress that with regards to philosophy, compositional style or even – as we can reconstruct from sources – piano techniques, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Prokofiev traversed quite different paths, and yet they subsequently found followers from young musicians with very different personalities and artistic characters.

Beyond the choice of instrument, the career of all three shared a common feature: although these days we remember them as composers, in their own time they became internationally renowned primarily as practising musicians (unlike one of the greatest of all composer-individuals of the 20th century Igor Stravinsky, who even as a young man drew attention to himself just through his compositions). This was a special path in which the merits of music teachers of the first great generation, the likes of Sergei Taneyev, Vasili Safonov and even Anna Yesipova, can hardly be denied. They fashioned universal musicians from their most talented pupils.

In the first decades of the 20th century, it was not just Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Prokofiev who enhanced the renown of the St Petersburg and Moscow conservatoires but a whole host of musicians who, due to World War I and the 1917 revolution, emigrated to the West en masse.

Although during this period of Russian music it was unquestionably the piano which was the emblematic instrument, by the time of the great

changes of 1917, and particularly the early 1920s, the country's great orchestra, the Petrograd State Symphony Orchestra, was enjoying state support. It performed in concert halls across the Soviet Union and abroad, accompanied by legendary guest conductors such as Bruno Walter and Ernest Ansermet. Thus it became very important that the best instrumental teachers be available to train the next generation.

Russian music and Russian performers became increasingly familiar in Europe. There was a fear that the revolution would sweep away culture and that the seizure of power by the Soviets would lead to music and its institutions collapsing in Russia. Yet it is testament to the power of the Russian school that it survived the cultural crisis which lasted until 1932, thanks among others to Felix Blumenfeld, who was a pianist (and conductor) but would go down in the history books as a teacher of future Soviet piano playing stars (for example Vladimir Horowitz and Maria Yudina). It was largely because of his personality that the politically-driven shift in the system of musical education was a transition rather than a fracture.

The conservatoires were nationalised as part of forced centralisation, but despite the cult of mass education and the stricter and more systematic syllabuses, they remained supreme workshops. Rapprochement with the West was hardly helped by World War II and then the Cold War. SovietRussian performers and artists had to go their own way, yet achieved miracles not just in their own country and behind the Iron Curtain but beyond it as well. And just as with sport, in this era music would sometimes be an object of diplomatic battles between the two worlds. Of course, the Soviets had much to be proud of, since Richter, Rostropovich or Nesterenko, to name just a few of the greatest stars, developed their careers at the very height of the struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The ideological motivations, and the Marxist-Leninist dogmas that revelled in high art (which recognised serious music as the only music representative of high culture) have faded away with time and today have pretty much lost their validity. By the same token, musical education is still a question of prestige for the Russians; it is difficult to list how many superb soloists and orchestral musicians have set off to show their talents in the world's greatest concert halls. Many of these talents will take to the stage at Liszt Academy in the spring on 2014 thanks to the invitation of Concerto Budapest, led by Andrรกs Keller. ร dรกm Ignรกcz

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Saturday 3 May 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 4 May 2014 / 19.00

Sunday 4 May 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

Talent Oblige!

ZAK Ensemble Mathias Kranebitter: Stop and Change (2011) Joanna Bailie: 5 Famous Adagios (2006) Balázs Futó: Intermezzos – movements 4–5 (2003) Zoltán Jeney: Consolazione (2001) Balázs Futó: Toccata (2003) Máté Balogh: Consummatum est (2010) Haydn: Consummatum est (Hob. XX/1:A) Bruno Mantovani: D’un rêve parti (1999)

Music Uplifts Final Concert of the Snétberger Music Talent Centre The Snétberger Music Talent Centre in Felsőörs has proved to be an amazing success story since its founding in 2011

by Berlin-based, Liszt Prize-winning guitarist Ferenc Snétberger. The centre still operates under his professional guidance. Thanks to the high standard of training provided annually to around 60 talented, primarily Roma and disadvantaged young people, students receive every opportunity to make a career in music. The success of the talent centre was visible for all to see at the 2012 Palace of Arts concert, when the most talented students from the first year played together with their teachers and certainly made an outstanding impression on the stage of the National Concert Hall.

During this concert the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy hosts the closing concert of the third year class.

Tickets: HUF 9 900 (patron ticket), 4 900, 3 900, 2 900 Organiser: Snétberger Music Talent Centre 88

Judit Nagy (flute); Péter Szűcs (clarinet); Bernadett Domány (violin); Péter Tornyai (viola); Tamás Zétényi (cello); Zsolt Birtalan (piano); Artistic director and conductor: Balázs Horváth This new Liszt Academy Concert Centre series has been devised in the ardent hope that it will become a tradition.

Every six months it offers several Liszt Academy students or groups the opportunity to display their musical wares. On the last evening of the series, the ZAK Ensemble, led by Balázs Horváth, will perform. The ensemble was created as part of the EU's New Music, New Audiences Programme.

In the spirit of this international initiative, the objective of the ensemble is to bring the freshest contemporary music to as wide a range of audiences as possible.

There will be no shortage of freshness in this concert, since asides from the Haydn composition, there will only be one other work that was written in the previous millennium.

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre Patron: New Music, New Audiences Programme

Alexander Sladkovsky & Concerto Budapest Beethoven: Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano in C major, op. 56 Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, op. 100 Vilmos Szabadi (violin) Ildikó Szabó (violoncello) Jenő Jandó (piano) Alexander Sladkovsky (conductor) Beethoven’s concerto for three instruments, composed for the master’s most important and prestigious student, Archduke Rudolf, brings together three fine soloists in the assurance that the most wonderful harmony may emanate from their rivalry. Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 is also about harmony, albeit in a different way. This work, composed in 1944, is the music of optimism. The fact that the author received the Stalin Prize for it does not detract in any way from its magnificent musical worth. These two pieces are conducted by Alexander Sladkovsky, second conductor of the Russian National Orchestra (founded

by Mihail Pletnyov) and teacher at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, who is justly renowned for his intense performances. The three principal parts of the Beethoven work are taken

by Liszt Prize laureate Vilmos Szabadi, Kossuth Prize winner Jenő Jandó (both professors at the Liszt Academy), and Ildikó Szabó, a rising star amongst the youngest generation of cellists.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Concerto Budapest

portraits No. 1 © andrás bozsó

Tuesday 6 May 2014 / 19.30

Wednesday 7 May 2014 / 19.00

Thursday 8 May 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Aria Exam

Endre Hegedűs Piano Recital Schumann: Symphonic Etudes, op.13 Donizetti-Liszt: March and Cavatina from the opera Lucia di Lammermoor Donizetti-Liszt: Waltz capriccio on themes from the operas Lucia di Lammermoor and Parisina Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Mendelssohn: String Symphony No. 9 in C minor Schubert: Rondo in A major (D. 438) Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, op. 25 Verdi: String Quartet in E minor (arrangement for string orchestra)

Endre Hegedűs is an accomplished interpreter of virtuoso Romantic piano works. His concerts not only impress for the musicality of his performance style, but also for the courage with which he undertakes the most technically difficult pieces. Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes and the Liszt’s transcriptions of Donizetti pose formidable technical challenges in themselves, yet during this solo recital we find these pieces are, in terms of technical adroitness, merely the “warm-up acts” for Pictures at an Exhibition, the rightly popular major piano cycle by Mussorgsky, and Gershwin’s no less demanding Rhapsody in Blue.

Few things better exemplify just what a remarkable role the Liszt Academy plays in Hungarian tertiary education than the aria exam, which is organized every May. While in the majority of universities exam results only survive in the memories of professors and students and written down in forgotten report books, the vocal faculty's aria exams are public and open to all: not only are they an important assessment for student and teacher, they are an exceptional aesthetic experience for everyone who is interested in the future of Hungarian vocal culture and visits the Liszt Academy to hear young talents. This year the exam returns back to the newly-renovated Grand Hall. The students perform the arias they have learnt during their year of studies, accompanied by a symphony orchestra before a live audience. They will be partnered by the Liszt Academy's resident orchestra, Concerto Budapest, conducted by Ádám Medveczky.

Variety is the spice of life, or so the saying goes, and proof of this is apparent in this concert by the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra. The fact is that very different composers find themselves placed next to each other during this concert performed by Japanese guest violin genius, the 27-year-old Mayuko Kamio.

The programme features two violin solos with orchestral accompaniment – Schubert’s Rondo in A major and Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy – along with the String Symphony in C minor written

by Mendelssohn when still in his teens; and finally the only string quartet by an elderly Verdi, arranged for a string orchestra. Verdi wrote thus of his quartet: “I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad quartet. I know it’s a quartet.”

Tickets: HUF 4 300, 3 700, 3 100, 2 500, 1 900 Organiser: Stúdió Liszt Kft.

Tickets are free and can be obtained from the ticket office in the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 8 000, 6 500, 5 000, 3 500 Organiser: Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

Endre Hegedűs (piano)

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Éva Bernáth, Imai Ayane, Makiko Yoshida (soprano); Orsolya Gheorghita, Klára Vincze (mezzo-soprano) Concerto Budapest Conductor: Ádám Medveczky

Mayuko Kamio (violin) Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra (artistic director: János Rolla)

Friday 9 May 2014 / 19.00

Friday 9 May 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 10 May 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

MÁV Symphony Orchestra Jazz it!

Meleg Tamás Trio feat. Kálmán Oláh Modern mainstream jazz Tamás Meleg (saxophone) Ádám Bögöthy (double bass) László Csizi (drums) Guest: Kálmán Oláh (piano) Featuring: Luca Kézdy (violin) Boglárka Kalmus (violin) Krisztina Haraszti (viola) Felicián Kalmus (cello)

Verdi: The Force of Destiny – Overture Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, op. 25 Sarasate: Gypsy Songs, op. 20 Dvořák: Symphony No 9 in E minor, op. 95 (“From the New World”) Ernő Kállai (violin) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Gergely Kesselyák (conductor)

Beethoven: The Complete Piano Concertos I. Dénes Várjon & Concerto Budapest Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 1 in C major, op. 15 Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor, op. 37 Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major, op. 73 Dénes Várjon (piano) Concerto Budapest András Keller (conductor)

Having recently turned 30, Tamás Meleg’s gift to himself is a concert in the Solti Hall of the Liszt Academy, in which he brings together his trio, an ad hoc string quartet and pianist Kálmán Oláh. This tenor saxophonist, who is mostly drawn to mainstream trends, bebop, hard bop and cool, felt that the time had come to stray into new stylistic territory, and during this concert he will demonstrate the points of contact he senses between modern jazz and 20th century classical music. Members of the Meleg Tamás Trio not only like and respect the art of Kálmán Oláh, but they feel extremely close to the world of the pianist-composer, who blends compositional systems of Bartók and Stravinsky with jazz’s improvisational method of manifestation.

Still not 28 and yet having an astonishing career background already, scion of a renowned dynasty of musicians, Ernő Kállai first attended the Liszt Academy’s class for outstandingly talented musicians. Following that he went to America on a scholarship and attended the summer camp given

by Itzhak Perlman, which led directly to a place at the Juilliard Music School, in Perlman’s class, and after winning the institution’s own competition, to a place at Carnegie Hall. Since then Kállai has taken the Junior Príma Prize, as well as coming second overall and winning the audience prize at the Szigeti Competition in 2012. Partnered by the MÁV Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gergely Kesselyák, he plays two stunning pieces by one of the most significant virtuosos of the second half of the 19th century, Pablo de Sarasate, sandwiched between a great Verdi overture and Dvořák’s most popular symphony.

In an age hungry for various artistic marathons and musical endurance records the news that Dénes Várjon will play all Beethoven’s piano concertos at two concerts and with just a gap of a week between them would appear to be nothing out of the ordinary. Of course, this would be the case only for those who are not clear about the significance of Várjon’s undertaking. Playing the entire piano concerto repertoire of Beethoven is not primarily a challenge technically speaking (although it is incredibly demanding), it is rather an intellectual trial. The odd-numbered works at this first concert bring the genre of Bildungsroman to the stage of the Grand Hall. We can trace how Beethoven, who consciously embraced the Mozartian heritage, evolved from his first piano concerto to the heroic composition in E flat major by discovering his own unique compositional signature sound (C minor concerto).

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Tickets: HUF 6 500, 5 400, 3 800 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 91

“Beethoven has an unbelievable number of faces” In spring 2014 Dénes Várjon will give a chamber music recital with Steven Isserlis (cello) and Joshua Bell (violin), followed by two orchestral concerts with the Concerto Budapest in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy. In these latter two, he will be performing all five Beethoven piano concertos.

We talked while he was preparing.

How is it possible to match three musicians with such different personalities?

The piano trio is a genre which particularly benefits when composed of musicians with striking yet quite different personalities. There is no need for fine tuning as is the case with a string quartet or a four-hand piano performance. It is refreshing and inspiring – I believe for the audience as well – if the three musicians have diverging dispositions.

Joshua Bell for example is very different to me.

We have had the chance to hear you play with Steven Isserlis in Hungary on several occasions. How did you two hook up with Joshua Bell?

Very easily. I have often played with Joshua and we frequently perform in this trio formation. Every year we give three or four concerts. It just so happens that all three of us are performing together in Hungary at the same time.

It was about half a year ago that you mentioned that your old plan of playing all Beethoven's piano concertos was coming closer to reality… … and then you said, that means five different composers and I agreed.

This is not just the lesson from my work on the piano concertos. These days I am again working on the piano sonatas, the ten violin sonatas and the trios. Beethoven has an unbelievable number of faces. And not just from the musical perspective: the human associations behind them are fantastically interesting...

It is interesting that there are pianists who are considered Beethoven specialists that have not played all five concertos.

The Concerto in B flat major is often omitted. It has had a tough fate, regarded as being the second work when in truth it is the earliest of the five. One can often hear it said that the first two concertos are essentially Mozartean allusions and that the B flat major is the weaker. In my view, this is a mistake.

I regard it as a fantastically mature work; the cadenza of the first movement is quite unique and places the whole movement into a different dimension.

dénes várjon 92

We really do often hear that the Beethoven piano concertos derive from the Mozartean world, but there was so much music surrounding Beethoven and so much he reacted to of which we know virtually nothing;

we do not hear it in concerts or on record; it seems hopeless that we will ever, even fragmentally, reconstruct the Beethovenian perspective.

Additionally, music after Beethoven very much influences our value judgements. For example, Hungarian musicians are most certainly influenced

by Béla Bartók's image of Beethoven, and Beethoven's compositional style and methods are reflected in Bartók's music. But I could mention Bartók the performer: I am certainly deeply influenced by the performance by Bartók and Szigeti of the Kreutzer Sonata, which I feel is quite superb. By the same token, we should not ignore the extent to which Beethoven sticks out from the public thinking about music of the time.

In terms of the development of your life, your experience, your musical career, is Beethoven the composer that has most preoccupied you?

Most definitely yes. And interestingly I am now more open to Haydn as well.

Certainly as a youngster there was something that excited me in Beethoven that later seemed secondary. There are difficulties, for example, technical ones for which one only feels sufficiently mature later in life. I still find Beethoven compositions for which I still do not feel sufficiently mature, so I am dealing with these as a long-term project.

Is it easier to become saturated with Beethoven?

Yes, because the pool is so narrow. Schumann is known through a very narrow cross-section, as is Beethoven. We can list those works which fundamentally define the image of a certain composer. It is no surprise if the image is a distortion. People love to think in categories, they needs pigeon holes and boxes. The aim is for these boxes to be ever more spacious.

In a sentence, what would be the optimum audience reaction after playing all five Beethoven concertos? How would you know that your intentions had become reality?

I cannot now really answer that. For the time being, I feel that I am very much enjoying my work with these pieces; they keep me continuously excited.

If I can somehow succeed in communicating something from my experience, then that will satisfy me.

Szabolcs Molnár 93

Sunday 11 May 2014 / 11.00

Sunday 11 May 2014 / 19.30

Monday 12 May 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Liszt Kidz Academy Music and Literature For 10–15-year-olds Works by Schubert, Liszt, Wolf, Fauré and Debussy Renáta Darázs (soprano) Péter Kiss (piano) Host: Gergely Fazekas Amongst schoolchildren there are always a number who are into maths, some literature buffs, and some budding historians. Of course, these various subcultures are not totally isolated from one another, and when it comes to music crossing between them is especially easy.

As music has a connection to everything, it reveals as much about maths as it does about literature, art or sport. The youth series of the Liszt Academy, that is, the four concerts in the Chamber Hall arranged within the framework of the Liszt Kidz Academy, venture into the latter four subjects, and the final programme in the series focuses on the ties between music and literature.

What happens to a poem if it is set to music? Does a good song need a good poem, or does a good melody ruin a good verse? Is it possible to think of music in a literary way? This concert for 10–15-year-old students seeks answers to these and similar questions with the help of songs and piano works from the 19th century, the age of poets of music.

The two performers, Renáta Darázs and Péter Kiss, are close chamber partners and intellectual musicians.

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 94

Hungary Torn Concert in memory of the victims of the Holocaust Ödön Pártos: Yizkor (In memoriam) László Weiner: Overture László Gyopár: Credo Mihály Nádor: Violin Concerto Ernő Dohnányi: Szeged Mass Péter Bársony (viola), Barnabás Kelemen (violin) Budapest Philharmonic Society Orchestra Conductor: Leon Botstein On 2 May 2013 viola player Péter Bársony and violinist Barnabás Kelemen (both teachers at the Liszt Academy) gave a highly successful concert in the New York Carnegie Hall. The event was much more than the appearance of two exceptionally skilful string players in one of the world's leading concert halls. What made the programme, assembled by Péter Barsony, of such special importance is that three of the composers represented – László Weiner, Mihály Nádor and László Gyopár – perished in the Holocaust, while the opening work, Yizkor, by Ödön Pártos, then teaching at the Tel Aviv music academy, was written in 1947 to commemorate the Holocaust's victims. That concert staged in Carnegie Hall can now be heard in the Liszt Academy's Grand Hall, and the partner of these two supreme string soloists will again be conductor Leon Botstein, rector of Bard College and president of the CEU curatorium.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

MVM Concerts – The Piano Nikolai Lugansky Franck: Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, op. 18 Prokofiev: Piano Sonata in B major, op. 53 Rachmaninoff: Preludes, op. 32 Nikolai Lugansky (piano) Nikolai Lugansky started studying piano at the age of seven, but before this he had already caused considerable surprise when – in a dacha close to the family summer retreat – he played a Beethoven sonata from memory after hearing it just once. Later on he studied for nine years under the legendary Tatiana Nikolayeva, and by the age of 16 he had won the most prestigious piano competition in the Soviet Union and brought back second prize from the Leipzig International Bach Competition. In 1994, at the age of just 22, Lugansky triumphed at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. His repertoire includes more than 50 concertos and nearly as many all-evening recital programmes. Franck’s Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, his opening work in The Piano concert series, is one of the most important pieces for the French CD Lugnasky is currently working on. This is followed by Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff. There are very few pianists today who feel so at home in the oeuvres of these two Russian geniuses of the 20 th century.

Tickets: HUF 10 000, 8 000, 7 000, 5 000, 4 000 Organiser: Jakobi Kft.

Tuesday 13 May 2014 / 19.30

Thursday 15 May 2014 / 19.00

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

Acoustic, Authentic Father & Son Berecz Family Concert

Chick Corea Concert in Budapest Modern piano playing legend Chick Corea has been to Hungary several times as a member of various formations, although only once (in 2006) as a soloist, and then it was in the cavernous Budapest Convention Centre, not the best venue for such a performance form. Now, however, we can enjoy his unique piano art in the sanctuary of the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy. Corea started making a name for himself in the early 1960s, debuting alongside Cab Calloway, and later accompanying such icons as Stan Getz and Miles Davis. During the 1970s his style gradually shifted towards avant-garde, and he is considered one of the founders of fusion, blending jazz and rock. He delights in spicing his piquant harmonic flow with colourful chords, thus creating tension, yet through their generous expressive power they hold their own as a dramaturgic rest point. In his improvisations he outlines this eternal unpredictability with passionate and yet intellectual passage variations that not infrequently flirt with the world of atonality.

Tickets: HUF 11 900, 9 200, 6 500 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 96

András Berecz (vocals, storyteller) István Berecz (dance, recorder) Mihály Berecz (gardon, piano) Gábor Babulka (dance, recorder) Balázs Vizeli (violin) László Mester (viola) Gergő Szabó Csobán (double bass) András Berecz, Kossuth Prize-winning singer and storyteller, wrote of himself that “after various detours and U-turns in my life, during which I was variously a packer, forestry worker and highway maintenance worker, I became a singer and storyteller seeking the joy of my harassed fellows.” The narrator delivers his message without props or scenery: our imagination is neither obstructed nor diverted – the story is unimpeded.

During the evening he appears with his sons István and Mihály. Winner in the dance category of the 2012 Fölszállott a páva folk music-folk dance talent contest, István Berecz is joined by former classmate Gábor Babulka to perform the revelries of country-folk. Mihály Berecz, playing piano works inspired by the folk music of Bartók and Kodály, reveals potential paths towards artistic fulfilment. The father links the expertise of the young ones with tales and songs.

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Chick Corea

Corea He enjoys the popularity of a rock star; he has won an endless stream of prizes and awards, sold millions of records, and has a global following. Now seventy-two years old, Chick Corea will sit down at the piano in the Liszt's Academy's Grand Hall as one of the great innovators, and as someone we have to thank for this most serious of “light” genres becoming part of the universal musical canon. He is a juggler at the keyboard, one who can fuse classical training with jazz virtuosity and pulsating flights of fantasy.

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“Music making is a natural state for me. I think music is one of the most natural things that can happen with a person. I love being able to sweep away the audience with currents I've created myself. For me, the greatest gift is being able to create something that the audience can identify with, enjoy and react to. For me that is the greatest present,” said Chick Corea on his Asian tour in 2013, who modestly regards himself as simply part of the entertainment industry.

Corea's attitude is that although jazz has been exalted into high art, if you look at its essentials, it is still folk entertainment. The canonisation of the genre was to a large part due to the quartet of Corea-Hancock-Jarret-Tyner, who revolutionised piano playing. These virtuosi were born in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and like all their generation grew up enchanted by what they heard on gramophone records. Jazz (Dixieland, Swing or something Latin) intoxicated the Anglo-Saxon elite as part of a globalising pop culture, as it did the immigrants of the lower classes, who experienced the modern American myth as their own fate. 20th Century mass society was built on the living music of various jazz combos, small groups and big bands: the rhythm of the dissemination of consumer culture was dictated by radio and the record industry. Even at the time of the Great Depression, it was possible to make a living from playing light music, and a musician could afford to get his children educated. So Dixieland musician, competent trumpeter and drummer Armando Corea, whose roots were in the impoverished provinces of southern Italy, and his wife, who had immigrated from Spain, could afford to get their son Anthony Armando, born in 1941, a good education. The elder Armando collected the discs of the most progressive musicians of the time, and thus his son, who was nicknamed from his youngest days Chick, got to hear the freshest numbers by the likes of Gillespie, Parker and Powell. When he started playing the piano at the age of four, however, his guides were Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. (The senior Corea could not resist introducing his son to the mysteries of the drums: sharp eared critics attribute the younger Corea’s unique percussive style to this early exposure.)

Nonetheless, Corea was not really drawn to the career of a classical pianist, and after graduating went off to Vegas to play gigs with his band.

He then played in New York accompanied by top notch Latin drummers.

His self-confident appearances in the entertainment industry contributed to Corea astounding the legendary entrance committee of the Julliard School. But despite his teachers being extremely happy with him, Corea left after just a couple of months. He was attracted by the real world and learning directly from the masters.

He took Herbie Hancock's place in Miles Davis's legendary band, so with Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams, became a shaper of music history. “Before our first joint session I called Miles Davis and asked him what to expect at the rehearsal, how I should prepare. And that characteristic, croaky voice just said: ‘there is no rehearsal, you play what you hear!’” he recalled subsequently, remembering his 1968 performance nerves.

But by then, he was already known as one of the progressives, since

he had regularly been working alongside Stan Getz, Herbie Mann and his childhood favourite, Dizzy Gillespie. In 1967 he made the universally lauded emblematic Now He Sings, Now He Sobs triple album with double bassist Miroslav Vitous and drummer Roy Haynes. By working alongside the genius that was Miles Davis, his star was truly in the ascendant. There is a recording from the 1970 Isle of Wight festival that can easily be found on the internet in which Miles Davis sends a crowd of half a million hippies crazy, accompanied by Jarrett, Corea and others. The public react to them as if they were the greatest rock idols. The stamping, head banging and mass hypnosis does not remotely evoke the world of jazz clubs. Even with rock amplification, pointing in the direction of fusion – as well as Corea's Fender Rhodes electric organ – the highly charged big stage scene was actually surpassed by Corea's next stage on the path to world fame.

He created Return to Forever in 1971, and it was a real revelation. This seminal fusion marriage of jazz and rock was a milestone, the effect of which still reverberates to this day. Perhaps the zenith of the true modern jazz-rock super group, the golden age of Return to Forever was its second line-up, which saw Al Di Meola on guitar, Stanley Clarke on jazz bass guitar, Lenny White on drums. Alongside these successes, Corea launched into new musical adventures. Besides his big band suite of 1976, My Spanish Heart, he fearlessly undertook such form breaking projects as the famous two-piano concerts with Herbie Hancock, in which they regularly played from Béla Bartók's Mikrokosmos. With their playing, they set about liberating serious music from its ivory tower. It was as if they were turning on its head the trend associated with Leonard Bernstein in which he smuggled jazz into elegant concert halls.

His versatility has raised questions about his true quality in the eyes of some suspicious critics. But such questions have never crossed the minds of his audiences. Since the 80s Corea’s acoustic band, created alongside his electronic formations, have been greeted with full houses. Moreover, his fantasy based on Mozart also proved a huge success, as did his lyrical sextet for a chamber line-up written jointly with Gary Burton: it was with this group that he made his debut in Hungary in 1983, to the great surprise of Budapest jazz lovers, who know him from a very different perspective.

Mozart was also subsequently to inspire him. In 1996 he impressed alongside Bobby McFerrin in his brilliant and fresh Mozart Session, while his Spain Concerto drawn from My Spanish Heart and his Piano Concerto No. 1 have become one of the London Symphony Orchestra's most interesting reference materials (they also premiered his string quartet in 2004).

As to what he will be playing at his solo recital at the Liszt Academy – that will only transpire on the night itself. Two things are certain though: Chick Corea will feel at home in the Grand Hall; and following Brad Mehldau and Vijay Iyer, we can confidently expect another stunning night of jazz.

Tamás Vajna 99

Thursday 15 May 2014 / 19.30

Friday 16 May 2014 / 19.00

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Brigham Young University Chamber Orchestra Rossini: Italian Girl in Algiers – Overture Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major (K. 453) Barber: Adagio Copland: Appalachian Spring András Kemenes (piano) Brigham Young University Chamber Orchestra Conductor: Kory Katseanes

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Miklós Perényi & MÁV Symphony Orchestra Schumann: Julius Caesar – Overture, op. 128 Dvořák: Violoncello Concerto in B minor, op. 104 Schumann: Symphony No. 4 in D minor, op. 120 Miklós Perényi (cello) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Gábor Takács-Nagy (conductor)

Brigham Young University, currently the largest religious university in the United States and the third largest private university in the country, was founded in 1875, the same year as the Liszt Academy. Supported by the Mormon Church, it comprises 34 000 students. The university is particularly proud of its musical life, the star of which is the university chamber orchestra, now visiting Budapest for the very first time. The orchestra and the university's music programme is directed by Kory Katseanes, who is of Greek decent. At this concert we hear him conducting two American and two European compositions, and the encounter between the old continent and the New World is symbolized in the first half by the appearance of the soloist in the Mozart piano concerto, the Liszt Academy teacher András Kemenes, who is famed for his profundity and sensitivity, though is someone who rarely plays in public.

“I have a sneaking suspicion that one has to be born Miklós Perényi. His example proves conclusively that talent doesn’t exist to make one’s life easy.

Quite the contrary, it spurs one to work, through which limitless vistas open up, never-before experienced cathartic events transform our way of thinking, and we come into possession of genuine knowledge free from scientism.” These are the words of praise of Zoltán Kocsis about Miklós Perényi, who takes to the Grand Hall stage as soloist for Dvořák’s popular cello concerto. This work is preceded and followed by two Schuman pieces from the MÁV Symphony Orchestra conducted

by Gábor Takács-Nagy: first, the rarely performed Julius Caesar Overture, and then the Symphony in D minor, the fourth to be released but actually the first Schuman finished.

Tickets: 1 200 Organiser: CMI Kft.

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Perfect harmony.

Mercedes-Benz is a proud supporter of Liszt Academy’s world-class education and concert life.

World-class from Hungary.

Please visit our webpage at www.mercedes-benz.hu. For illustration purposes only. CLA combined fuel consumption: 3.6–8.4 l/100 kms, combined CO2-emissions: 109–144 g/kms.

Saturday 17 May 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 18 May 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL Amadinda 30

Beethoven: The Complete Piano Concertos II Dénes Várjon & Concerto Budapest Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, op. 19 Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, op. 58

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Aurél Holló-Zoltán Váczi: Traditions I – THE WINNING NUMBER… / beFORe JOHN7 Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin (transcription

by Aurél Holló) Steve Reich: Mallet Quartet Aurél Holló: Gamelan-bound / beFORe JOHN2 Bob Becker: Unseen Child Jazz evergreens and ragtimes (Bob Becker’s arrangements) Javanese and Balinese traditional music

Dénes Várjon (piano) Concerto Budapest András Keller (conductor)

Bob Becker (NEXUS, Canada), Péter Szalai, László Tömösközi, Lajos Tóth, Triginta Percussion Amadinda Percussion Group: Zoltán Rácz, Zoltán Váczi, Aurél Holló, Károly Bojtos

In the second recital in the ambitious enterprise undertaken by Dénes Várjon and Concerto Budapest under conductor András Keller it is the turn of the evennumbered Beethoven piano concertos.

Even though in the first concert just a week before Dénes Várjon performed three works (the odd-numbered ones), this evening is no small endeavour either. The Concerto in B flat major, released as the second but actually the first Beethoven wrote, is the stunning hit composition of the 18-year-old genius.

The Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major is, however, completely different. Presented in 1807 in the palace of Prince Lobkowitz, together with the Coriolan Overture and Symphony No. 4, this work is characterized neither by the profuse virtuosity of the early compositions nor the demonic heroism of later Beethoven music; instead, it is an introspective, serious piece, a piano concerto that represents a true mine of possibilities for the reflective and intellectual pianist.

Dénes Várjon is just such an artist.

It is 30 years to the day that this fourmembered formation, named after a Ugandan percussion instrument, first appeared on the Hungarian music scene: it is possible to say that not only did Amadinda shake up Hungarian music life from the outset, but they went on to write history. Or at least, history has been written for them, since works by the likes of John Cage, György Ligeti and Steve Reich have been penned specifically for them over the past decades. Just as in their first concert and in later ones, they appear in their jubilee concert in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy with a varied programme of contemporary works, their own classical transcriptions, and traditional music and jazz arrangements. The festive mood will certainly enhance the energy of the ensemble, particularly considering the fantastic guest musicians that perform with them, notable among them the American percussionist and composer Bob Becker.

Tickets: HUF 6 500, 5 400, 3 800 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 7 900, 6 500, 4 800 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Amadinda

Amadinda 30 On 18 May 1984 Amadinda gave an eagerly-anticipated concert at the Liszt Academy. The ensemble had been formed the previous January and had already given several concerts. Audiences at the Madách Theatre regularly encountered them – they played African music in a stage work about Albert Schweitzer – but the atmosphere that developed in that concert created a kind of birthday celebration. Today it is difficult to reconstruct precisely what it was that attracted such a large audience for a performance by these four young musicians (two of whom were still college students at the time).

Perhaps it was the programme. They played contemporary music (Sándor Balassa), modern “classics” (Steve Reich), jazz arrangements and music from Ghana. Looking back across a distance of three decades, it is surprising how this concert so clearly, almost explicitly, represented the philosophy that Amadinda has so consistently and uncompromisingly pursued for thirty years. One of the corner stones of this philosophy is that percussion music is a heritage of that most primal form of musicality. But it is also a medium for the most innovative and fastest-growing repertoire of the modern age.

It is well known that Amadinda themselves have played a preeminent role in the expansion of the repertoire, by commissioning new works, through world premieres, and simply by the encouraging power of their artistic calibre.

At that particular Liszt Academy concert, the cream of Hungarian composers was present, cutting across barriers of age and aesthetic camps, which strongly suggested that Amadinda was not just a workshop but was predestined to play an integrating role as a formation. It came as no surprise to us that Amadinda became one of the crystallising centres of Hungarian contemporary music, a fact that can be gauged from the more than forty works that have been dedicated to the group. At the same time, their performing of Hungarian premieres of foreign composers' works has become just as important a mission, and their work presenting Hungarian works abroad is also of inestimable value.

Amadinda have also joined the international discourse of modern music.

They have established themselves as a towering “brand”, with their complete recordings of John Cage's instrumental works, through works written for the ensemble (besides Cage, György Ligeti and Steve Reich each wrote a word for “Amadinda”), and by giving several hundred international concert and festival performances.

These three decades have resulted not just in the accumulation of musical experiences, they have also built up a unique collection of percussion instruments, indeed, often building them quite literally. Besides this, Amadinda have also cultivated an audience. At the half-way point, following 15 years of work together, Zoltán Rácz expressed it thus: “I have definitively realised that audiences won't reject any contemporary piece of music as such. They simply reject inferior performances. Music doesn't have to be understood but heard. And everyone can listen to music.”

Szabolcs Molnár 103

György Solti (1987) © gábor fejér

Monday 19 May 2014 / 19.30

Thursday 22 May 2014 / 19.00

Friday 23 May 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

On The Spot – Composition Faculty I. 40 Year Jubilee of Rudolf Pechan as Concert Master of the Orchestra of Budapest University of Technology Beethoven: Overture – Stephen the King, op. 117 Mahler: Symphony no. 1 in D major (“Titan”) Orchestra of Budapest University of Technology Conductor: Géza Köteles The Orchestra of Budapest University of Technology is a unique Hungarian phenomenon. There are few places in the world where a university that has no music faculty can claim to have an orchestra that has been performing for nearly 120 years. About a third of the orchestra’s current 70 members are active students at the Budapest University of Technology, another third are graduate engineers, while the rest are from quite different professions, including an artist and a surgeon. The orchestra has been led since 2003 by Géza Köteles, who is a repetiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and regular guest conductor of numerous Hungarian and foreign orchestras: Köteles claims he was selected for the post “with engineering precision: Excel tables, formulae, ballot papers and ten different parameters!”

In their first performance in the newly-restored Liszt Academy, they pay homage to Rudolf Pechan, who has been their concert master for forty years, and who remains the spirit and motor of the ensemble.

Tickets: HUF 10 000, 2 500, 2 000, 1 000 Organiser: Foundation of the Budapest Technical University Symphony Orchestra

Ákos Lustyik: The Happy Prince (piece with music) Szabolcs Mátyássy: The Nightingale and the Rose (chamber opera in one act) Featuring fourth year drama students from the University of Theatre and Film Arts and contemporary music ensembles of the Liszt Academy Heads of teaching staff: Zsófia Tallér and Gyula Fekete (composition); Péter Forgács, D. Géza Hegedűs, László Marton (drama class) In 2011 the Liszt Academy began offering applied composition as a subject as part of its composition teaching for those students for whom composition is not only autonomous activity but a form of applied arts. Students can now study this subject at university level. Since one of the most important realms of applied composition is theatre and film, the Composition Faculty has forged a close relationship with the University of Theatre and Film Arts. The latest fruits of this collaboration can be seen over two evenings during the course of which musical theatre productions by students of the Composition Faculty are staged in the Solti Hall and performed by vocal and theatre students. On this the first evening, two Oscar Wilde adaptations are presented: Ákos Lustyik's musical theatre piece The Happy Prince and Szabolcs Mátyássy's chamber opera based on a libretto by Barnabás Szöllősi, The Nightingale and The Rose. For details of the second evening, see page 109.

Tickets are free and can be obtained from the ticket office in the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre; University of Theatre and Film Arts

Kristóf Baráti & the Hungarian Chamber Orchestra J. S. Bach: Violin Concerto in E major (BWV 1042) Mendelssohn: String Symphony No. 10 in B minor Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in D minor Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence, op. 70 Kristóf Baráti (violin) Hungarian Chamber Orchestra (artistic director: Béla Bánfalvi) Budapest audiences need no introduction to Kristóf Baráti, who won the Paganini Competition in Moscow in 2010. His intense musicality, impeccable violin technique, his sensitivity and stamina rank him amongst the greats. During the season he gives solo recitals at the Liszt Academy, though this time he performs in the company of the Hungarian Chamber Orchestra (founded in 2011 and conducted by Béla Bánfalvi), of which Baráti is principal soloist. Bach’s Violin Concerto in E major is a true Baroque “hit”, whereas Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in D minor is less well known: it was written by the 13-year-old wunderkind and only resurrected in the 20th century, with Yehudi Menuhin playing it first.

Tickets: HUF 5 400, 4 300, 2 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 105

Parity Nothing better demonstrates the symbiosis between teaching and performing than the concert series “On the Spot”, which showcases the Liszt Academy's faculties. In the run up to the concerts presenting vocal and composition students, opera singer and in-coming director of the vocal faculty, Andrea Meláth, and head of the composition faculty, Gyula Fekete, talk to the Liszt Academy's Concert Magazine about tradition and modernity, interfaculty collaboration, stage presence, contemporary music and the pressures of the arts industry.

What kind of impact does the renovated and newly-named György Solti Chamber Hall have on the Vocal Faculty?

ANDREA MELÁTH: The aria exam takes place in early May, accompanied

by Concerto Budapest. By then the students of the opera faculty will have feasted upon the Chamber Hall. Moving back here is of historical importance.

It will increase the respect the young students have for their future alma mater, and it will exert an incredibly seductive allure for foreign students.

They knew about us before, but with the reopening of the Franz Liszt Square shrine to music, we have become a unique university of worldwide importance.

Additionally, the vocal faculty is in an even more exceptional situation since we now have our own proper theatre: from the dressing room to the orchestral pits, the Chamber Hall has all the requisite theatrical machinery and it is our home. It is a true rehearsal hall. So, in January we will be staging the Opera Exam festival, in which the opera faculties of Florence, Zagreb and Stockholm will be on show for an evening each, in addition to ourselves.

The vocal and composition faculties are preparing for a joint production on 22 and 23 January. What can the audience expect?

GYULA FEKETE: We gave a splendid demonstration last year when our own students orchestrated the opera La Calisto by Monteverdi's contemporary Francesco Cavalli. For the end of year exams, we have written four twentyminute, stand-alone mini operas for the four final-year singers to perform; but in the January programme, the students have written linking music for Mozart arias.

It is still surprising to hear that the students will be approaching one of the indisputable giants of serious music this way. It sounds like the gravitational pull of 138 years of tradition does not necessarily make for dogmatic education?

AM: Tradition and history are the determining factors. In my view, we teach by a process of extension: this is how we conceive training. And I hope we achieve this. We respect the past by living in the present. We cannot behave as if we were living a hundred years ago. Our world is quite different to how it was when I graduated just fifteen years ago. Expectations, for example, of the more important agencies, are so diverse that five years gives us little time to equip the students with all the necessary knowledge.

Is self-management indispensable for composers as well?

gyula Fekete, andrea meláth © zsolt Pataky 106

GYF: That is self-explanatory. We operate differently of course, because we are not the ones on stage. But we are also teaching a profession. From that perspective we are conservative, because over the last century the fundamentals have not changed. We insist on traditional tuition, so at most

we use computerised programmes for scoring. But we offer courses which focus on electronic composition and the media as part of the basic teaching.

Students explore the more sophisticated electronic genres, from video games to sound installations. Those learning applied composition also encounter the digital world because of theatre and film. We have to acclimatise ourselves to the world we live in. We try to prepare composers for this. We do everything to create opportunities for them to stand out in today's music market.

Besides these university concerts what other opportunities open up?

GYF: For one, we fill as many halls in the Liszt Academy with music as possible. But naturally we also offer them to theatre and film. We work closely with the University of Theatre and Film, and they work with the students from the first year. The actors bring verses, we lick the material into shape and set it to music. This method works very well and you can learn a great deal from the process.

AM: I think collaborative work is needed. In the first three foundation years, singers should meet up with composition students and create joint productions.

Because of the unusual demands of contemporary music?

AM: My attitude is that if we live in this era, then we must communicate the music of our time. Additionally, it is a very good feeling to be the first in the world to premiere something. I state this with a little self-irony: on this occasion the audience and profession have nothing else to relate it to. More seriously, such powers are liberated, such neural pathways stimulated, which do not happen in even the much-adored Mozart.

GYF: Furthermore, there are many types of contemporary music. It is a very colourful palette from János Vajda to Péter Eötvös. The audience and the singers must get used to it. And to get used to it here at the Liszt Academy.

AM: Today there is really everything, not just the experimental avant-garde.

Eötvös's Three Sisters seems at first a traditionally static work and yet it seethes with subtle, minute vibrations that demand theatrical ability.

Then again, in Handel's Xerxes last year, I had to be an acrobat. One thing is for sure, these days you are expected to be fit when you go onto the operatic stage. However someone sings, if you are not in the best physical condition, you won't get a role. I have no objection to this: it is not enough just to belt out an aria, you have to be a presence on stage as well. Even more so when there does not appear to be much action in the piece. Performing opera is not just about the voice.

Tamás Vajna 107

Saturday 24 May 2014 / 15.30

Saturday 24 May 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 25 May 2014 / 11.00

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Zugló Philharmonics Gábor Horváth DLA doctorate exam concert Monteverdi: Volgea l'anima mia soavemente Monteverdi: Luci serene e chiare Monteverdi: Io son mi giovinetta Miklós Csemiczky: Pater noster György Orbán: Timor et tremor György Orbán: Cor mundum György Orbán: Daemon irrepit callidus Kodály: Beseeching Brahms: Nänie, op. 82 Verdi: Quatro pezzi sacri Budapest Monteverdi Chorus (choral director: Éva Kollár) Szent István Király Oratorio Chorus (choral director: Kálmán Záborszky) Gábor Horváth (conductor)

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Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, op. 18 Bartók: Bluebeard’s Castle, op. 11 (BB 62) Roman Rabinovich (piano) Bernadett Wiedemann (mezzo-soprano) Péter Kálmán (bass) Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Gábor Hollerung (conductor)

Gábor Horváth has taught conducting techniques at the Choral Conducting Department of the Liszt Academy for more than 10 years. He has headed the Szent István Király Symphony Orchestra since 2001, and been artistic director and principal conductor of the Gödöllő Symphony Orchestra for three years.

His doctoral dissertation was on Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, and at this concert he selects from choral music of the past 400 years. The programme, spanning from Monteverdi to today, accurately reflects the point Gábor Horváth made in an interview: “I consider myself a musical omnivore.

Obviously I have a few favourites, but there are very few works in which I cannot discover a side I like.” The Budapest Monteverdi Chorus, conducted by Éva Kollár, and the Szent István Király Oratorio Chorus, also participate.

He was 10 when he debuted with the Israeli Philharmonic under the baton of Zubin Mehta, and in 2008 he won first prize in the International Rubinstein Competition, as well as a further four special prizes. The name of Israeli Roman Rabinovich is not yet familiar in Hungary, though it certainly will be. At the Gábor Hollerung and Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra concert he plays possibly the most popular piano concerto

by Rachmaninoff, and following this, in the second half of the concert, we gain a glimpse into another music history trend of the beginning of the last century in Bartók’s symbolist opera Bluebeard’s Castle, which peers into the deepest recesses of the malefemale relationship. The two soloists for this concert performance are Bernadett Wiedemann and Péter Kálmán, perhaps the finest Judit and Bluebeard, respectively, there are.

Tickets: HUF 2 100, 1 800, 1 500 Organiser: Zugló Philharmonics Budapest

Tickets: HUF 4 500, 3 900, 3 200 Organiser: Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra The Devil’s Greeting Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, op. 18 Roman Rabinovich (piano) Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Lecturer and Conductor: Gábor Hollerung Rachmaninoff dedicated his Piano Concerto No. 2 (1901) to Nikolai Dahl because he was the doctor who pulled the young artist out of deep depression. The piece was the first piece of evidence that the composer had returned to life. This fiendishly difficult work, which is about the descent into hell, is presented in detail

by Gábor Hollerung as the closing event in the 2013–14 “Understandable Music” series. The soloist will be Roman Rabinovich, the highly promising Israeli pianist and winner of the Rubinstein Competition in 2008.

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 1 800, 1 200 Organiser: Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra

Sunday 25 May 2014 / 16.00

Sunday 25 May 2014 / 19.00

Tuesday 27 May 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

On The Spot – the Composition Faculty II.

Muzsikás Group – St Ephraim Male Choir From Bartók to Bartók

László Bakk-Dávid: The House of Bernarda Alba (physical theatre production) Adrián Kovács: Mrs Karnyó (musical)

Whitsun Concert with the Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir Pieces written for Whitsun Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir Zsuzsanna Arany (piano) László Matos, Sándor Kabdebó, Beáta Szűcs (conductors) On Whitsun (Pentecost), the seventh Sunday after Easter, the Christian world celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ's disciples. At the same time, according to folk tradition, Whitsun is an unadulterated spring feast; it is attended by a wealth of customs, games and merriment in Hungarian folk culture.

Maypole dancing, electing the Whitsun king and welcoming spring: the festival of Whitsun is surrounded by traditions which have enriched Hungarian music, from folk music to the choral literature of the 20th century and today. On Whitsunday 2014, the long-established and highly prestigious Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir undertake a revival of many of these spring welcoming traditions in sound, with folk games, a cappella and piano-accompanied choral works, interspersed with the occasional solo piano piece.

Tickets: HUF 3 500, 2 800, 2 000, 1 500 Student and concession tickets: HUF 2 500, 2 000, 1 400, 1 000 Organiser: Hungarian Radio Music Ensembles

Featuring drama students from the University of Theatre and Film Arts and contemporary music ensembles of the Liszt Academy Directors: Kristóf Widder (student) and Attila Vidnyánszky Jr. (student) Heads of Teaching Staff: Zsófia Tallér and Gyula Fekete (composition); Péter Forgács, D. Géza Hegedűs, László Marton (drama faculty); Csaba Horváth (physical theatre and choreography faculty) In 2011 the Liszt Academy began offering applied composition as a subject as part of its composition teaching for those students for whom composition is not autonomous activity but a form of applied arts. Since one of the most important realms of applied composition is theatre and film, the Composition Faculty has forged a close relationship with the University of Theatre and Film Arts.

The latest fruits of this collaboration can be seen on these two evenings. On this the second evening, two stage classics can be seen in new readings: László Bakk Dávid has reformulated Garcia Lorca's piece The House of Bernarda Alba for musical theatre, while Adrian Kovács has written a musical based on a libretto

by Beatrix Kendrey based on Csokonai's eternal work Mrs Karnyó. For details of the first programme, see page 105.

Tickets are free and can be obtained from the ticket office in the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre; University of Theatre and Film Arts

Bartók: Evening (BB30) Bartók: Four Ancient Hungarian Folksongs (BB 60) Bartók: Slovak Folk Songs (BB 77) Bartók: Székely Folk Songs (BB 106) Bartók: From Olden Times (BB 112) Folk Music from Bartók 's Collection Muzsikás Group: Mihály Sipos (violin, zither); László Porteleki (violin, koboz, tambura); Páter Éri (viola, mandolin, recorders); Dániel Hamar (double bass, gardon, drum) St Ephraim Male Choir Conductor: Tamás Bubnó The primary objectives of the St Ephraim male choir are to present the vocal heritage of the Byzantine Christian world while, at the same time, nurture the tradition of the Hungarian male voice choir. At this joint concert with the Muzsikás folk group, they sing all of Bartók's works for male choir. Alongside these works the original folk material can be heard, a taste of the musical world which Bartók encountered on his folk music collecting trips and which serve as the melodic and structural basis for the majority of these vocal pieces. Muzsikás have been performing for forty years and have succeeded in getting Hungarian folk music accepted as a musical style and an independent genre comparable in status to others. They have also achieved tremendous success in presenting 20th century classical music and traditional music alongside each other. At this one concert we hear a repertoire for male voice that is representative of Bartók's great oeuvre with the folk music that was its source of inspiration.

Tickets: HUF 3 900, 2 800, 1 700 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 109

Wednesday 28 May 2014 / 19.30

Friday 30 May 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 31 May 2014 / 19.30

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

MÁV Symphony Orchestra Richard Strauss recital Óbuda Danubia Orchestra Mendelssohn: Paulus, op. 36 Katalin Szutrély (soprano); Bernadett Nagy (alto); László Kálmán (tenor); Krisztián Cser (bass) Purcell Choir (artistic director: György Vashegyi) Óbuda Danubia Orchestra György Vashegyi (conductor)

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R. Strauss: Death and Transfiguration, op. 24 R. Strauss: Oboe Concerto R. Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel, op. 28 Hansjörg Schellenberger (oboe) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Péter Csaba (conductor)

For Mendelssohn, who converted from Judaism to Protestantism, the story of the conversion of Saul to Paul the Apostle was more than just musical raw material. He began working on the St Paul Oratorio for the Lower Rhein Festival held in Catholic Düsseldorf.

This expansive work, premiered in 1836, draws intensively on the oratorio tradition associated with Bach and Händel and is perhaps Mendelssohn's most personal creation, as well as being, of course, the culmination of his oeuvre. The Óbuda Danubia Orchestra will be conducted

by György Vashegyi, and are joined by the world-renowned Purcell Choir and leading soloists. Vashegyi will offer a profound interpretation of this towering work, which will serve more than merely a musical lesson for the audience.

This concert by Péter Csaba, who was born in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) and is famed internationally both as a violinist and conductor, together with the distinguished MÁV Symphony Orchestra he has led since 2012, integrates into the series that marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss. A late and rarelyperformed Strauss masterpiece sits between two hit works from his youth.

Death and Transfiguration is one of the highpoints of Romantic works examining death. Till Eulenspiegel ranks among the most virtuoso symphonic poems, and even Debussy (who was otherwise left absolutely cold by the music of Strauss) studied its scoring with admiration. The Oboe Concerto is a late Strauss work that cannot be compared with anything that had gone before. The work is performed

by Hansjörg Schellenberger, former oboe soloist of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Tickets: HUF 3 100, 2 400, 1 700, 1 000 Organiser: Óbudai Danubia Nonprofit Kft.

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 3 500, 3 000 Organiser: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Alena Baeva & Concerto Budapest Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35 Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A major, op. 92 Alena Baeva (violin) Concerto Budapest Keller András (conductor) Alena Baeva is one of the brightest stars of the young violinist generation.

Not yet 30, she has already won several prestigious competitions (Wienawski Competition, 2001; Paganini Competition, 2004; Sendai Competition, 2007).

Born in Kazakhstan and educated in Moscow, her masters included Mstislav Rostropovich, Shlomo Mintz and Ida Haendel. She has more than 35 concertos in her repertoire; this recital sees her performing Tchaikovsky’s exquisite Violin Concerto with András Keller and Concerto Budapest. In the second half we hear Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, a work Richard Wagner called “the apotheosis of the dance” and Glenn Gould “the first disco music”.

Tickets: HUF 4 900, 3 500, 2 100 Concerto Budapest

Florian © Krisztián Zana

Concert Halls and Acoustics For centuries, the most influential source for acoustic knowledge was the experiences earned from constructing Greek theatres. The science of acoustics evolved with music history; the beginning of its explosive development coincided with the Romantic era and the growing demand for organised public concerts among the middle classes seeking entertainment for its own sake.

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The first concert halls expressly built for music were developed in the 19th century. The relationship between the audience and performers had begun to change: it became more formal, the public sat in ordered seats to listen, observing performers placed on an emphatically raised podium. It was all very disciplined. And yet a vibrant musical life developed in these newly built halls which had an encouraging effect on composers, who premiered increasingly monumental works in response. This period was the joint golden era of architecture and music history, and the start of the development of modern acoustics.

“I found no thread to guide me; there existed no theories on the subject.

My success or failure depended on luck, like an acrobat who has to dance on a tightrope while grabbing a balloon,” declared Jean-Louis-Charles Garnier (1825-1898), designer of the Paris opera house, in his book of 1880. In truth, acoustic knowledge at the turn of the century was acquired on a practical basis, from one building to the next, by word of mouth among architects.

The scientific examination of hall acoustics only began in the 1900s, following the construction of a series of concert halls with capacities exceeding a thousand. The formal and applied interior design solutions were also perfected with regard to acoustics from one creation to the next.

Europe's first important concert hall, the Leipzig Altes Gewandhaus (which was knocked down in 1894) was built in 1781 and could host a total of 400 people. For comparison, that is about the same size at the Liszt Academy Solti Hall. For a long time, its organisation on a brick-shaped ground plan, the proportions of its dimensions (width, length, height – the so-called hall ratio), and the orientation of the audience and performers was the only model for a concert hall. The frequently employed “shoe box” form that we regularly encounter today can be traced directly back to the Gewandhaus design.

In 1821 the Berlin Schauspielhaus (known today as the Konzerthaus) was built, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and holding 1677 people, and which again followed this model. In World War II it was totally destroyed, then rebuilt following the original plans with an organ front and crystal chandeliers; it is now regarded as one of the world's most luxurious concert halls. The formation of the auditorium is similar to the Liszt Academy Grand Hall: the ground floor is framed from above by two side balconies and a middle balcony. The handrail of the balcony is ornamental in construction, the acoustic importance of which is that it guarantees the even distribution of sound energy in space by creating the so-called diffusing surface shape. The flooring is horizontal and covered with wooden parquet. The ceiling is parallel to it and not curved.

When designing the wall that forms the shape of the stage, the architect built it as high as possible to create the greatest clarity of sound. The stage rises one meter above the rows of the ground floor audience.

A similar hall acoustic design can be observed in the Vienna Musikvereinsaal, which was opened in 1870 and holds 1680 people, and which

is also regarded as one of the most important concert halls in the world.

Its significance is demonstrated by its acting as the model for the Boston Symphony Hall, completed in 1900, which itself was based on the Gewandhaus form. The architects of the Boston hall were the first to make use of an acoustic adviser in the person of Wallace C. Sabine, who following this work described the hall acoustic importance of reverberation time and gave it is first empirical formula.

The key to the success of the Musikvereinsaal's superb acoustics, besides the employment of the Gewandhaus shape, is attributed by many to the unique structural design of the ground floor itself. Beneath the ground floor seats and the stage is a floor panel which conceals a cavity which behaves as an enormous resonator, ensuring that the deeper frequency sounds, for example the orchestral bass, are delivered better.

From a hall acoustic perspective, the closest relative to the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy is the Zurich Grosser Tonhallesaal, which was completed in 1895. The ground plan of the Grand Hall with its 1546 seat capacity and orientation of the audience is very similar. Both halls widen at the side balconies, and the windows of the side wall guarantee natural light. The columns holding the beam above the balcony of the Tonhalle are similar in design to those that featured on Korb and Giergl's original plans. In the Grand Hall, similarly to the Zurich hall, we find boxes where the balconies meet the stage, rounding off the corners of the hall; the placing of audience seats in both venues is almost identical. The ceiling, which is parallel to the floor, and the walls are decorated with rich ornamentation, covering 80% of the surfaces, which facilitates the requisite diffusion of sound. The floors of both halls are covered with wooden parquet, while even today the orchestra takes its place on a one meter high stage made of wood. The ground floor rows of seats in the Tonhalle originally had a cavity beneath them, the dimensions of which was reduced with time, and as a result its acoustic properties deteriorated.

From a hall acoustic perspective, Korb and Giergl's concert halls followed the traditions of the time. The Budapest Liszt Academy Grand and Chamber Halls can be regarded as adhering to the Gewandhaus model, reflecting the best known acoustic solutions of their time. The architects themselves solved the acoustic questions as they arose, as was typical of many major music venues of the time. During the design of the stage structure and the auditorium (and the space below it) they drew on and followed the experiences of others working abroad, from the entire ground plan to the choice of proportions of ornaments. The magic of the Liszt Academy Grand Hall – beyond its visual spectacle – is the experience of its sound, which has won the acknowledgement of very many visiting artists.

Gergely Lakatos 113

Sunday 1 June 2014 / 19.00

Monday 2 June 2014 / 19.30

Tuesday 10 June 2014 / 19.30

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Jazz it!

In Memoriam Ella Fitzgerald Ágnes Bazsinka, Dóra Vers, Flóra Matisz, Evelin Máthé, Fruzsina Fenyő (vocal); Tamás Balogh (piano); Marcell Gyányi (double bass); Tamás Czirják (drums) Guest: István Elek (saxophone) The end-of-season concert by teachers and students promises to be a real treat this year because five young women, the most talented representatives of the upand-coming generation, give an idea of what the future of jazz singing in Hungary may well sound like. Performers pay their respects to the art of the great Ella Fitzgerald by selecting from her traditional repertoire, though the scoring has been especially done for this occasion. Ágnes Bazsinka, who is finishing her second year at the Jazz Department, can already be considered an established performer. She has worked with a funk band and as one half of a duo, and in 2010 she won first prize at the 1st National Jazz Music Competition. Dóra Vers is a finalyear student of jazz singing; she can be called a genuine Ella fan given that there is not one solo by the diva of jazz that Dóra has not learned by heart.

Second-year student Flóra Matisz has unique vocal characteristics, while her musicality is strengthened by the fact that she has studied violin for several years. Evelin Máthé also a second-year student having recently started out on her solo career; she has a powerful, full-bodied voice many reckon could take her into the world of classical music.

Fruzsina Fenyő can normally be heard performing with her own sextet, who occasionally drift from mainstream jazz into more popular sounds.

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 114

Pekka Kuusisto & Mahler Chamber Orchestra University of Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Edmund Campion: The Last Internal Combustion Engine – concerto work for string quartet, orchestra and electronics Stravinsky: Card Game Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E minor, op. 93 University of Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Conductor: David Milnes The symphony orchestra of Berkeley University in California was founded in 1923 and enjoys one of the most august histories of New World ensembles.

The university offers world-famous music training and its orchestra, whose members are from the student body and which is conducted by its leader David Milnes, gives 15–18 concerts annually. The orchestra always schedules a contemporary work and this Budapest concert is no exception. On this occasion they will be performing the concerto written by American Edmund Campion in 1957 for a string quartet and electronics, which was premiered in 2012 by the Kronos Quartet and the Santa Rosa Symphony Orchestra. After this work, with its extreme sonorities, feelings and compositional techniques, the orchestra play two modern classics: Stravinsky's ballet music for Card Game, written originally for George Balanchine's company, and the symphony Shostakovich wrote in the months following Stalin's death.

Tickets: HUF 3 500, 2 500, 1 500 Organiser: Concert Masters International – Budapest

Steve Reich: Duet for Two Solo Violins and String Orchestra J. S. Bach: Violin Concerto in E major (BWV 1042) Steve Reich: Violin Phase for Four Violins J. S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major (BWV 1048) John Adams: Shaker Loops Mahler Chamber Orchestra Violin accompaniment and conductor: Pekka Kuusisto Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto is an unmistakeable presence on today’s classical music scene. He is also a creative influence in the electronic, jazz and folk music genres, in all areas proving beyond doubt his brilliant sense of style and astounding improvisation skills. Only a few know that his first teacher was the internationally famed Hungarian violin teacher Géza Szilvay (who, naturally, graduated from the Liszt Academy), thus his affection for Hungary is obvious.

The world first took notice of his talent in 1995 when – as the first Finn to do so – he won the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition. Since then he has worked with numerous premier European orchestras, including the superb Mahler Chamber Orchestra we hear this evening.

Pekka Kuusisto himself conducts this multinational ensemble, and the programme is just as exciting as the performers. Past and present, Baroque and contemporary embrace each other, the former represented by timeless Bach concertos, and the latter by pieces from two contemporary American composers, John Adams and Steve Reich.

Tickets: HUF 7 900, 6 500, 4 800 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Untitled lights No. 3 © mátyás misetics

pekka kuusisto Š kaapo kamu

Play chamber music!

As if he had leapt from a Nordic tale, he is how I envisage the youngest child of a woodland family of elves to be. In a stripey T-shirt, with ruffled blond hair, sparkling eyes, and making magic with the violin in his hands. When needed, he chases demons. When required, he gives energy, or simply radiates happiness with his being. “Pekka Kuusisto is the best thing happening in classical music today,” announced the Guardian in 2007, and if anyone thinks that the dark clouds of gloom are gathering in the firmament of classical music, then they only have to think of the Finnish violin prodigy, now in his thirties, as the custodian of light.

His grandfather was a musician (composer and organist), his father is a well-known opera composer in Finland, his mother a music teacher, his brother a violinist, conductor and composer, his two sisters are dancers and one of his brother-in-laws is a jazz pianist. So the roots of his musical open-mindedness can be found at home. Although he exploded into the world of Finnish and international music at the age of 19 when he became the first Finn to win the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition, he participates with equal dedication in folk music, pop or jazz productions as he does when playing Bach, Mozart and Sibelius.

He hates the expression “crossover”. He feels that that contains the implication that there are boundaries between different genres. These, according to Kuusisto, exist only in our heads. But he not only believes this, he can prove the truth of his proposition. Should anyone doubt this, look on the internet for two short videos which show Kuusisto playing in the café of the WQXR classical music radio station in New York: in one he plays a Finnish folksong (he plucks the violin like a guitar and sings the melody with stunning naturalness, feeling and intensity); on the other he plays the Sarabande movement from Johann Sebastian Bach's solo Partita in D minor.

Astonishingly. With infinite freedom, tasteful ornamentation and restraint.

And for this reason, with a truly dramatic violin tone. And of course, just wearing a stripey T-shirt!

In 2013 he was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize which was created by the Scandinavian countries. Following the gala concert, a journalist asked him what advice he would give to aspiring young musicians. He did not think long over the answer: “Play a lot of chamber music. I recommend that for every problem. If you are hungry, play chamber music. If your television has gone wrong, play chamber music!” The power of his classical music performances is perhaps thus explained, because for him, a Bach concerto or a Steve Reich composition is chamber music. In 2006, partnering Katalin Kokas, he performed Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante at the Palace of Arts under the baton of Zoltán Kocsis. Seven years later he returned there as concert master of the Britten Sinfonia; in 2012 he was delighted to play at the Kaposvár International Chamber Music Festival and in spring 2014 will perform as a soloist in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy. He may not wear a stripey T-shirt, but we can count on him working his magic.

Gergely Fazekas 117

Thursday 12 June 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 14 June 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 15 June 2014 / 16.00

Solti Hall

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL

Peter Serkin & the Bard College Conservatory of Music Orchestra Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3 (BB 127) Copland: Symphony No. 3 Peter Serkin (piano) The Bard College Conservatory of Music Orchestra Conductor: Leon Botstein

Take one fusionist created from a jazz musician, an omnivore made from a folk musician, and a jazz musician descended from a classical musician. Dip all three ingredients in the colourful musical world of today and leave to mature for a few years. Dust with folk music themes and jazz rhythms and finally sprinkle with a few improvisational techniques. Leave them in a well-defined area (for instance, a stage), inform the general public, sit back and enjoy the results. This is fusion cuisine for saxophone and two dulcimers.

The three music personalities barely need introduction: Miklós Lukács has long been a creative force in the concerts of Mihály Dresch, and he put together a duet recording with Kálmán Balogh a few years ago. To quote a gastro blog: “Fusion cuisine is about expertise, quality, taste, restraint and excellent quality raw ingredients.” All these are evident at this particularly tasty concert!

Bard College was founded in 1860 and is one of the most prestigious universities in America in the areas of music and the humanities: its music faculty and festival is an important focal point for music life in America and beyond.

Here the college's orchestra give a concert in the Liszt Academy Grand Hall, conducted by the president of the university and founder of the Bard Music Festival, Leon Botstein. The soloist will be none other than the three-time Grammy winning pianist Peter Serkin (son of the legendary Rudolf Serkin, the grandson of Adolf Busch.) Together, they perform a programme of exceptional sensitivity, comprising three “American” compositions that were all introduced to the world in the same year, 1946.

The New York Philharmonic premiered one of the most exciting works from Stravinsky's neoclassical period, the Symphony in Three Movements on January 27; a few days later on February 8, Bartók's last completed work (save a few bars of orchestra scoring), the Piano Concerto No. 3, was given its first performance in Philadelphia; while on October 18 in Boston, Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3 debuted.

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Acoustic, Authentic Miklós Lukács – Duets Miklós Lukács, Kálmán Balogh (dulcimer); Mihály Dresch (saxophone)

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The Marczibányi Square Kodály School diamond jubilee closing concert Sixty years ago in 1954 the Buda vocal music secondary school was founded, under the patronage of Zoltán Kodály.

Originally located in Zsuzsanna Lórántffy Street, the school moved to its present site next to Marczibányi Square 15 years later. The institution has borne the name Kodály School since 1975. The school has remained a world sensation since its foundation and has been visited by the likes of Yehudi Menuhin, Pablo Casals, Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten, all of whom left amazed. Graduates of the school include such illustrious names as Iván Fischer, Miklós Mohay, István Mártha, Miklós Spányi, János Vajda, Gábor Eckhardt, alongside a great many more notable musicians.

Since 1960 the year-closing concert has by tradition taken place in the Liszt Academy Grand Hall. After a forced break due to the renovation work at the academy, the Hungarian Heritage Prize-winning institution now returns with its internationally acclaimed school choirs, the Junior Prima Girls Choir and the Bartók-Pásztory MR Childrens Choir, accompanied by instrumental competition winning soloists and other distinguished musicians and former students.

Tickets: HUF 2 800, 2 200 Organiser: Zoltán Kodály Vocal Music Primary School

Wednesday 18 June 18 / 19.00 Friday 20 June / 19.00

Friday 4 July 2014 / 18.00

Solti Hall

Solti Hall

Operatic sketches Singers: Éva Bernáth, Imai Ayane, Makiko Yoshida (soprano); Orsolya Gheorghita, Klára Vincze (mezzo-soprano) Composers: Bálint Horváth, D. Balázs Kecskés, Bence Kutrik, András Gábor Virágh Concerto Budapest Conductor: Gergely Vajda Director: András Almási-Tóth Fantasy, Poetry, Beauty – these words are written on the decorative lamps built into the ceiling of the Liszt Academy Grand Hall. And these three words have shaped the spirit of the institution since its inception: they are particularly appropriate for the year-closing opera exams. It is now a tradition for the Liszt Academy to stage world premieres at these “exams”, which although true tests for the students, are not perceived as being educational assessments by the audience. In 2014 four composition students – Bálint Horváth, Balázs D. Kecskés, Bence Kutric and András Gábor Virágh – have each written 15–20 minute mini-operas expressly for the students of the opera faculty and based on a jointly-created libretto. This is a real operatic workshop in which the fantasy of the creator, the poetry of the music and the beauty of the voice fuse into an inseparable unity. Gergely Vajda and the Concerto Budapest ensemble will help the students in the interpretation of the music. The director of the Liszt Academy's opera programme, András Almási-Tóth, will bind it all together as artistic leader and director.

Tickets are free and can be obtained from the ticket office in the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Readings from Ovid Closing concert of the Erasmus Intensive Programme On 22 June 2014 the students and teachers of seven arts universities (Brussels, Rome, Florence, Târgu Mureș, Cracow, Zagrab, and of course Budapest) come together to concentrate for fourteen straight days on the stories of Ovid. One aspect of this project, sponsored by the Erasmus Programme, is for the composition students of the participating institutions to write minioperas based on ten stories jointly selected from Ovid's Metamorphosis, and then to help vocal and instrumental students learn and stage these works during the course of a two-week Budapest workshop. Orpheus, Pygmalion, Daphne, Callisto and others will come on stage on 4 July when the students display to the audience in a closing gala evening the fruits of their two-week labour, showing how far they have progressed with Ovid's eternal stories and with each other.

Tickets are free and can be obtained from the ticket office in the Liszt Academy.

Organiser: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 119

LISZT MUSEUM MATINEE CONCERTS

4 January

Chopin Concert of the Young Talents of the Academy

11 January

Matthieu Esnult (piano)

18 January

Angéla Bálint (violin), Gyöngyi Újházi (cello) and Gábor Monostori (piano)

25 January Guitar concert by Janka Csiki, Ákos Günsberger and Borbála Seres

1 February Chamber concert of the artists

of the Budapest Philharmonic Society

8 February

15 February Ádám Zsolt Szokolay (piano)

22 February

Zsuzsanna Császár (piano) and Mariann Kerényi (piano) Rondino Chamber Orchestra

1 March Concert by the students of Balázs Kecskés (Bartók Conservatory)

8 March

Concert by the Japanese Students of the Liszt Academy

22 March

Imre Hargitai (piano)

29 March

Izabella Simon (piano)

5 April

SaeBeom Lee (piano)

12 April

Edina Bak (piano)

19 April

Hungarian Piano Trio

26 April

Marco Grieco (piano)

3 May

Tamás Kereskedő (piano)

10 May

Katalin Frideczki (piano) and Mátyás Büki (violin)

17 May

Liza Yui (piano)

24 May

Ferenc János Szabó (piano)

31 May

Mariann Marczi (piano)

7 June Concert by the students of Giuseppe Fricelli (Cherubini Conservatory, Florence)

14 June

Semmelweis Quartet Concerts start at 11 am Venue: Old Academy Ticket prices: HUF 1300, 600 Organiser: Liszt Academy

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Ferenc Liszt Memorial Museum and Research Centre

Old Academy of Music © Miklós Török

Liszt's last home at the Academy has been welcoming those who come to pay their respects to the great founding president of Hungary's university-level musical institution ever since 1986. The rooms are furnished like a flat, with the master's instruments, furniture and commemorative artefacts on display to enchant visitors, as well as original paintings and sculptures of the great man. It has an additional magic: the museum is alive because it is organically integrated into the daily activities of the Old Academy building. From the chamber hall next door to the salon you will often hear the sound of live music; you can hear teachers and students hurrying to lessons inside the building, just as Liszt, Erkel and later generations must have done. When the visitor enters the museum from the corridor, they enter a lively and vibrant world. Our colleagues offer them a growing range of services, and will attempt to answer all questions relating to Liszt. Passing from the hall to the dining room, the original table indicates the times when Liszt received visitors: we are ready to receive our visitors whenever they arrive.

Although the museum flat preserves the original mood and atmosphere of the second half of the 19th century, it endeavours to employ state-of-theart opportunities for preserving and developing its collection. Last year we renovated the lighting and in 2009 introduced an audio-guide service, which thanks to our supporters from all over the world and the Liszt Academy Aviso studio, are available in 12 languages, spoken by native speakers and furnished with musical examples. Recently we were also able to restore Liszt's instruments thanks to donations from our friends. Each year we organise various temporary exhibitions and, with the aid of modern technology, have expanded the space. Visitors can borrow hand held tablets with supplementary material in Hungarian and English on given themes in the form of text, images and music, which will soon be available for smartphone users as well.

We are not the only ones that feel the museum is ours: so do our teachers, students and foreign guest artists, who for decades have come to pay their respects to Liszt in the concert hall besides the flat at Saturday morning matinées and other events. The quality of their performances underlines the standards with which we nurture Liszt's heritage. Besides the many museum services on offer, we attribute equal importance to the international quality of our Liszt researches, the results of which are discussed at our conference lectures, through publications and via databases on our multi-lingual homepage, and with publications for performers of our musical manuscripts which are held in our archive. Naturally, we maintain a living relationship with all the focal points of international Liszt research.

Zsuzsanna Domokos 121

Kidz Academy Youth programmes at the Liszt Academy Every child is born with music; there is no babe untouched by the music of Mozart or Bach. Or indeed Gangnam Style, depending on what they encounter at home. The youth programmes of the Liszt Academy naturally aim to acquaint youngsters not with the values of pop culture, but with the three musical worlds which shape the institution’s teaching and concert life; namely, classical music, folk music and jazz.

The objective of the Liszt Academy's youth programmes, under the sobriquet “Kidz Academy”, is not to nurture musicians but to create the audiences of the future. For those children who hear the Goldberg Variations at home, we will show them further wonders from the infinite universe of great music. For those who grow up in the shadow of Lady Gaga, we guide them to other musical lands.

One of the pillars of the Liszt Academy's youth programmes is the weekly small activity groups for those aged 6-10. We show the children various musical genres and forms; they encounter different instruments (which they can most definitely touch!), and we also demonstrate how concerts work. We have built an appropriately grand scale model of the Grand Hall from LEGO and the children can play with LEGO figures, seeing where the artist goes, how they prepare in the dressing room while the audience is gathering, and so on. A further two pillars of these programmes are the Chamber Hall and Grand Hall concerts, where children can see up close how music is made and works. Details of the concert series aimed at the 10-15 year age group can be found on the opposite page (and on earlier pages of the magazine). The Grand Hall concerts and our other youth programmes will commence in autumn 2014.

Many think that music is pure entertainment. They would be wrong.

It teaches the essence of being human, and it is never too early to start the acquaintance. As Shakespeare put it: “The man that hath no music in himself / Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds / Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; / The motions of his spirit are dull as night,/ And his affections dark as Erebus./ Let no such man be trusted. /Mark the music.”

In spring 2014 we will be holding the small group of Kidz Academy activities on eight separate occasions in the Liszt Academy building on Ferenc Liszt Square.

The activities are aimed at the 6-10 year age group. Parents cannot participate in the activities but we will show concert and opera videos for them in adjacent halls.

Dates of programmes (always on Saturdays at 10 am): 1 February, 22 February, 1 March, 22 March, 12 April, 26 April, 10 May, 24 May. Tickets: 900 Ft The Kidz Academy is supported by LEGO Hungaria Ltd.

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LISZTACADEMY.HU

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY FOR 10–15-YEAR-OLDS CONCERT SERIES IN THE SOLTI HALL

2 FEBRUARY 2014 MUSIC AND MATHS 9 MARCH 2014 MUSIC AND FINE ART 13 APRIL 2014 MUSIC AND SPORT 11 MAY 2014 MUSIC AND LITERATURE

In Preparation for the First International Éva Marton Singing Competition The world is awash with competitions and festivals. Many complain that they are being devalued. But then again, there are also many instruments in the world, yet a Stradivarius violin remains a thing of eternal value.

It all depends whether there exists the gold standard of professionalism and substance. Having posed this question and received an unambiguous affirmative in response, the Liszt Academy has organised its first international competition. It emerges as a powerful brand, given that it is linked to the name of Éva Marton. The very same Éva Marton who for the last forty years has enjoyed a stellar career in the greatest operatic roles of Puccini, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Verdi and other composers. When an institution and a country possesses such a treasure, it would be remiss not to make use of it. So we are indeed exploiting this possibility, in the spirit of Ferenc Liszt's oft quoted slogan “génie oblige!”

In this spirit, our competition has received the attention and support of those responsible for directing our cultural life. Moreover, it will be an exciting artistic event. The president of the jury of the first Éva Marton International Singing Competition will be the eponymous artiste herself, and the jury will comprise of influential participants of the international opera world, who can offer valuable help to the career of a young singer.

Because what is important in a music competition? Not the financial reward (although I can divulge that in this case, this reward is far from negligible...) but the opportunity for further engagements and promotion. A truly good competition is like a tree, its branches and creepers can extend far afield, perhaps even to other continents. The Liszt Academy – with its incomparable concert halls – and the elegant Budapest Opera House, which as a partner will host the gala concert, will tempt young musicians to try their luck with their magical allure. We hope we succeed in finding some true gems, and for this we are relying not just on experts but on the verdict of a supportive and sympathetic audience as well.

András Batta

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I. INTERNATIONAL

PRESENTED BY

BUDAPEST 15-21 SEPTEMBER 2014

2014 Autumn preview 20 September 2014

4 October 2014 18 October 2014

26 October 2014 5 November 2014

19 November 2014

I. International Éva Marton Singing Competition – Finals Fischer Annie 100 Péter Eötvös: Lady Sarashina (Hungarian premiere) David Lang at the Liszt Academy Jean Efflam Bavouzet, Balázs Szokolay, Zoltán Rácz Brussels Jazz Orchestra "Sweetheart & the Daredevil"

26 November 2014

Kim Kashkashian, Péter Nagy

7 December 2014

Ian Bostridge, Thomas Adés

12 December 2014

Steven Isserlis, Dénes Várjon

MORE THAN CLASSICAL

www.bartokradio.hu

LISZT ACADEMY SOLTI HALL

PÉTER EÖTVÖS LADY SARASHINA 18.10.2014.

LISZT ACADEMY GRAND HALL

IAN BOSTRIDGE THOMAS ADÈS (PIANO) SCHUBERT: WINTERREISE 07.12.2014.

Liberation from the Ivory Tower With the conclusion of reconstruction work on the palace of music on Liszt Ferenc Square, which has reopened in all its original glory, the institution of the academy has also been renewed.

From now on the University of Music and Musicology forms a dual entity with the concert organisation. Built in art deco style, the Liszt Academy becomes a concert centre organizing its own programmes. There is virtually no comparable example of such integration in international music.

A global brand is being built. Alongside the Juilliard School of New York or the Helsinki Sibelius Academy, now the New Carnegie Hall in New York, the Barbican Centre in London, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the BOZAR of Brussels are now also competitors of the Liszt Academy.

The rules of the game on the international concert market are different to those in arts education: brand presence is all important.

The new entity demanded a new image.

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The Liszt Academy has been a global brand in the teaching of music for well over a century, and it should be satisfied with nothing less than this as a 21st century-university concert centre. The task of the communications team set up at the end of February 2013 was nothing less than the complete structuring of the image of such a global brand. While preparing several complex multiround procurement tenders, the communications team conducted some deep drilling. From the depths of the archives, libraries and museums they mined documents, photographs and films; they dug deep into the history of the institution and the building, in the process analysing domestic relations and the international market. “The task was all the more difficult in that very many things had to be decided in advance, from the publication structure to programme communications and the specific aesthetic foundations, without having at our disposal an earlier continuous operation as a point of reference, or a great deal of time.” says Imre Szabó Stein, Development Director for Communications and Media Content at the Liszt Academy.

The visual reformulation was conducted jointly by the communications team and Allison Advertising, who won the tender. Consortium member Webra International was charged with the task of creating a functionallydifferentiated Internet presence worthy of an individual and global brand.

The new website of the Liszt Academy is the instantly and globally accessible virtual symbol of the renewal of the institution. The creative and at the same time functional formation of the schedule and selectable menu system react to the demands of the concert centre and the university.

Particular emphasis is given to registration and online ticketing, but there is also a highlight on the link lists to further pages, as well as dynamic platforms promoting the latest courses and university campaigns, for instance, the entrance examination. It was particularly important to ensure the implementation of a so-called responsive user interface effective for immediate tablet and mobile use: the system sensing the monitor size and adjusting to the optimal size displays exactly the same content.

The new tonal palette of the Liszt Academy integrates the publications, website and advertising portfolio. Cyan, registering classical music, the closely associated deep blue of university events, the proud gold of opera, fiery red of jazz, joyful yellow of folk music, and positive green of programmes of the coming generations – colours that dominate the image – combine to form an immediately identifiable, emotion-generating colour-coded system. The clear intention of the communications strategy hallmarked by the name of Szabó Stein is to liberate the Liszt Academy and the diverse and rich world of music represented by it, which can be described in the duality of patina and progress, from the ivory tower of elite culture.

lisztacademy.hu

Concert chronology Concerts organized by Liszt Academy Concert Centre Hosted concerts Classical Jazz Opera Folk Junior Other Friday 10 January 2013 / 20.00

Ági Szalóki – Karády Recital Franciscan Charity Evening for People with Autism

Sunday 26 January 2014 / 19.30

The King's Singers – Great American Songbook

Chamber music – Tuned for Grand Hall Evgeni Koroliov & Keller Quartet

Page 8

Wednesday 22 January 2014 / 19.00

Opera Exam Festival The Don Juan Project Liszt Academy Page 10

Thursday 30 January 2014 / 19.30

Page 10

Page 10

“Transparent Sound” Festival OPENING CONCERT

Friday 24 January 2014 / 17.00

Page 4 Tuesday 14 January 2014 / 19.00

László Borbély DLA doctorate-closing piano recital

Black and White Colours Gergely Bogányi AT the Liszt Academy II.

Page 18

Saturday 11 January 2014 / 19.00

Song recitals AT the Liszt Academy Andrea Rost & Kálmán Oláh “Songs As Never Heard Before”

Tuesday 28 January 2014 / 19.30

Opera Exam Festival The Don Juan Project Liszt Academy Thursday 23 January 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 12 January 2014 / 19.30

Page 18

Thursday 23 January 2014 / 19.00

Page 4

Page 4

Chanticleer: She said/He said

Opera Exam Festival Sing the Body Electric!

University College of Opera, Stockholm Page 12 Friday 24 January 2014 / 19.30

Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Hommage à Petrovics Emil Page 12 Saturday 25 January 2014 / 15.30

Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Page 18

Friday 31 January 2014 / 19.00

MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Page 20

Friday 31 January 2014 / 19.00

Jazz it!

Pozsár Máté Quartet FEAT. Kristóf Bacsó Avant-garde and Free Jazz Page 20 Saturday 1 February 2014 / 19.00

Acoustic, Authentic Poros Orchestra Music, Family – a Revival Musicians’ Dynasty Page 20

Page 6

Zoltán Kocsis & Zugló Philharmonics Budapest

Page 13

Saturday 1 February 2014 / 19.30

Saturday 18 January 2014 / 19.30

Saturday 25 January 2014 / 19.00

Page 21

Evgeni Koroliov & Concerto Budapest

Opera Exam Festival Dido and Aeneas Cherubini Conservatory, Florence

Page 6

Sunday 19 January 2014 / 11.00

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra The Empire of Pleasure and Torment Page 8 Saturday 19 January 2014 / 19.30

Evgeni Koroliov & Concerto Budapest Page 8 132

Tuesday 21 January 2014 / 19.30

Page 13 Sunday 26 January 2014 / 19.00

Opera Exam Festival The Soldier’s Tale Zagreb Academy of Music Page 13

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra

Sunday 2 February 2014 / 11.00

Liszt Kidz Academy Music and Maths For 10–15-year-olds Page 21 Tuesday 4 February 2014 / 19.30

Beyond Music...

Tamás Vásáry Musical Conversations IV/3 Page 21

Wednesday 5 February 2014 / 19.30

Wednesday 12 February 2014 / 19.00

Friday 21 February 2014 / 19.30

Chamber Music – Tuned for Grand Hall Ádám Banda, Miklós Perényi, Balázs Szokolay Page 22

Symphony Orchestra of the Hungarian Radio

Thursday 6 February 2014 / 19.30

Joint concert by the Liszt Academy and the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Reconnections – The Art of Chamber Music Page 30

Verdi: Requiem – In Memory of Gábor Ugrin

Thursday 13 February 2014 / 22.00

Khatia Buniatishvili & Concerto Budapest

Friday 7 February 2014 / 19.45

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds

Page 22

Pinchas Zukerman & Budapest Festival Orchestra

Page 30

Page 22

Friday 14 February 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 8 February 2014 / 10.30; 15.00

Génie oblige!

Ivett Gyöngyösi

Story-telling Music/2 Musical Bells

Page 31

Page 36

Saturday 22 February 2014 / 19.30

Page 36

Saturday 22 February 2014 / 22.00

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds Page 37 Saturday 23 February 2014 / 19.30

Khatia Buniatishvili & Concerto Budapest

Page 26

Friday 14 February 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 8 February 2014 / 19.45

Jenő Jandó & MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Monday 24 February 2014 / 19.30

Page 22

Saturday 15 February 2014 / 19.00

MVM concerts – The Piano János Balázs Jr. Solo Recital The Three Faces of the Piano

Saturday 8 February 2014 / 22.00

Christine Schornsheim Harpsichord Recital

Page 37

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds

Page 32

Tuesday 25 February 2014 / 19.00 Page 38

Page 26

Saturday 15 February 2014 / 19.30

Carnival Winter Farewell with Folk Music Ágnes Herczku, István “Szalonna” Pál and Dániel Szabó

Pinchas Zukerman & Budapest Festival Orchestra

Sunday 9 February 2014 / 15.30

Pinchas Zukerman & Budapest Festival Orchestra

Page 22

Monday 10 February 2014 / 19.00

Liszt Reflections Double Piano Recital by the Korean Liszt Society Page 26 Monday 10 February 2014 / 19.45

Page 31

Page 32 Sunday 16 February 2014 / 19.30

Thomas Hengelbrock and the Balthasar-NeumannEnsemble Page 32

Sunday 16 February 2014 / 22.00

Page 36

W.A. Mozart: The Magic Flute

Wednesday 26 February 2014 / 19.00

Jazz it!

Tálas Áron Quintet featuring János Hámori Fusion Jazz Page 38 Wednesday 26 February 2014 / 19.30

Chamber Music – Tuned for Grand Hall Takács Quartet Page 38

Pinchas Zukerman & Budapest Festival Orchestra

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds

Tuesday 25 February 2014 / 19.00

Page 22

Page 36

Page 42

Tuesday 11 February 2014 / 22.00

Wednesday 19 February 2014 / 22.00

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds Page 30

Mozart Late Night Mozart Show in One For over 18-year-olds Page 36

W. A. Mozart: The Magic Flute

133

Friday 28 February 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 8 March 2014 / 15.00

Wednesday 26 March 2014 / 19.30

Alexander Markov & MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Gennady Rozhdestvensky & Concerto Budapest

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 – Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi & Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra

Friday 28 February 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 8 March 2014 / 19.30

Song recitals AT the Liszt Academy Andrea Meláth “Woman and Love”

Károly Binder – A Composer’s Evening

Page 42

Page 49

Page 50

Page 42

Sunday 9 March 2014 / 11.00

Tuesday 25 February 2014 / 19.00

Liszt Kidz Academy Music and Drawing For 10–15-year-olds

W. A. Mozart: The Magic Flute

Friday 28 March 2014 / 19.45

Finghin Collins & Budapest Festival Orchestra Page 66

Saturday 29 March 2014 / 15.30

Zugló Philharmonics Budapest

Page 43

Page 50

Page 66

Saturday 1 March 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 9 March 2014 / 19.30

Saturday 29 March 2014 / 19.45

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra

Hungarian Radio Choir

Page 43

Page 53

Sunday 2 March 2014 / 11.00

Tuesday 11 March 2014 / 19.30

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Death and Transfiguration

Malcolm Bilson & Orfeo Orchestra Haydn-Mozart Recital

Page 43 Sunday 2 March 2014 / 19.00

Génie oblige!

Musiciens libres Page 48

Tuesday 4 March 2014 / 19.30

Danubia Orchestra Óbuda

Page 48

Page 53

Wednesday 12 March 2014 / 19.30

MVM concerts – The Piano Jenő Jandó Piano Recital Page 56

Friday 14 March 2014 / 19.30

Finghin Collins & Budapest Festival Orchestra Page 66

Sunday 30 March 2014 / 19.30

Elena Bashkirova & Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival

Page 66

Thursday 3 April 2014 / 19.00

Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi & MÁV Symphony Orchestra Page 69

Friday 4 April 2014 / 19.00

Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi & Hungarian National Philharmonic

Génie Oblige!

Péter Kiss and Péter Szűcs

Page 48

Sunday 16 March 2014 / 19.00

Monday 7 April 2014 / 19.30

Thursday 6 March 2014 / 19.30

Génie oblige!

Classicus Ensemble

Chamber Music – Tuned for Grand Hall Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Dénes Várjon

Thursday 6 March 2014 / 19.00

Acoustic, Authentic Ökrös Retrospective

David Fray & Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Page 49

Friday 7 March 2014 / 19.30

Gennady Rozhdestvensky & Concerto Budapest Page 49

Page 56

Page 58

Tuesday 18 March 2014 / 19.30

Chamber Music – Tuned for Grand Hall Kristóf Baráti Violin Solo Recital Page 58

Thursday 20 March 2014 / 19.30

Vijay Iyer Trio [USA]

Page 62 134

Page 62

Page 69

Page 70

Tuesday 8 April 2014 / 19.00

Acoustic, Authentic Mihály Dresch & Balázs Vizeli Two Preeminent Artists, One Stage Page 70

Tuesday 8 April 2014 / 19.30

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra

Page 74

Wednesday 9 April 2014 / 19.00

Jazz it!

Szebényi Dániel Quintet FEAT. Károly Binder Modern Acoustic Jazz Page 74 7 pm Friday 11 April 2014 / 19.00

Tuesday 22 April 2014 / 19.00

Friday 2 May 2014 / 19.30

Génie Oblige!

Péter Tornyai – A Composer's Evening

Beyond Music...

Tamás Vásáry Musical Conversations IV/3

Tuesday 22 April 2014 / 19.30

Saturday 3 May 2014 / 19.30

Page 80

Piano Recital by Tamás Érdi

Page 80

Wednesday 23 April 2014 / 19.00

Saturday 12 April 2014 / 19.00

Song recitals AT the Liszt Academy Júlia Hajnóczy & Szabolcs Brickner “Poets and Lovers”

On The Spot – Department of Vocal Studies Richard Strauss 150

Wednesday 23 April 2014 / 19.30

MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Page 74

Page 75 Saturday 12 April 2014 / 19.30

Kodály Philharmonia Debrecen

Page 75

Sunday 13 April 2014 / 11.00

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra Crime and Punishment Page 75 Sunday 13 April 2014 / 11.00

Liszt Kidz Academy Music and Sport For 10–15-year-olds

Page 81

Óbuda Danubia Orchestra

Page 81

Thursday 24 April 2014 / 19.30

Erzsébet Szőnyi at 90 Opening Concert of the International Music Education Symposium Page 82 Friday 25 April 2014 / 19.30

Zoltán Kocsis & Hungarian National Philharmonic Page 82

Page 84

Music Uplifts Final Concert of the Snétberger Music Talent Centre Page 88 Sunday 4 May 2014 / 19.00

Génie Oblige!

ZAK Ensemble Page 88

Sunday 4 May 2014 / 19.30

Alexander Sladkovsky & Concerto Budapest Page 88

Tuesday 6 May 2014 / 19.30

Endre Hegedűs Piano Recital

Page 90

Wednesday 7 May 2014 / 19.00

Aria Exam

Page 90

Thursday 8 May 2014 / 19.30

Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Page 90

Page 76

Saturday 26 April 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 13 April 2014 / 15.30

Dezső Ránki & Concerto Budapest

Gala Concert of the Fourth National Ede Zathureczky Commemorative Competition

Page 82

Page 91

Sunday 27 April 2014 / 19.30

Friday 9 May 2014 / 19.00

Black and White Colours Gergely Bogányi at the Liszt Academy III.

Andrea Meláth & Junge Deutsch-Französische Philharmonie Richard Strauss 150

Jazz it!

Meleg Tamás Trio FEAT. Kálmán Oláh Modern mainstream jazz

Page 84

Page 91

Page 76

Tuesday 29 April 2014 / 19.30

Saturday 10 May 2014 / 19.30

Friday 18 April 2014 / 19.00

Cyprien Katsaris & Győr Philharmonic Orchestra

Beethoven: The Complete Piano Concertos I. Dénes Várjon & Concerto Budapest

Page 76

Tuesday 15 April 2014 / 19.30

Bach Concert with the MÁV Symphony Orchestra Page 80

Page 84

Friday 9 May 2014 / 19.00

MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Page 91 135

Sunday 11 May 2014 / 11.00

Monday 19 May 2014 / 19.30

Friday 30 May 2014 / 19.00

Liszt Kidz Academy Music and Literature For 10–15-year-olds

40 Year Jubilee of Rudolf Pechan as Concert Master of the Budapest Technical University Orchestra

MÁV Symphony Orchestra Richard Strauss recital

Page 94 Sunday 11 May 2014 / 19.30

Hungary Torn Concert in memory of the victims of the Holocaust

Page 105

Saturday 31 May 2014 / 19.30

Thursday 22 May 2014 / 19.00

Alena Baeva & Concerto Budapest

On The Spot – Composition Faculty I.

Page 110

Page 105

Sunday 1 June 2014 / 19.00

Monday 12 May 2014 / 19.30

Friday 23 May 2014 / 19.30

Jazz it!

In Memoriam Ella Fitzgerald

MVM Concerts – The Piano Nikolai Lugansky

Kristóf Baráti & Hungarian Chamber Orchestra Page 105

Monday 2 June 2014 / 19.30

Tuesday 13 May 2014 / 19.30

Saturday 24 May 2014 / 15.30

University of Berkeley Symphony Orchestra

Chick Corea Concert in Budapest

Zugló Philharmonics Gábor Horváth DLA doctorate exam concert

Tuesday 10 June 2014 / 19.30

Page 94

Page 94

Page 96 Thursday 15 May 2014 / 19.00

Acoustic, Authentic Father & Son Berecz Family Concert Page 96

Thursday 15 May 2014 / 19.30

Brigham Young University Chamber Orchestra Page 100

Friday 16 May 2014 / 19.00

Page 108

Saturday 24 May 2014 / 19.30

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra

Page 114

Page 114

Pekka Kuusisto & Mahler Chamber Orchestra Page 114

Page 108

Thursday 12 June 2014 / 19.00

Sunday 25 May 2014 / 11.00

Acoustic, Authentic Miklós Lukács – Duets

Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra The Devil’s Greeting

Page 118

Page 108

Saturday 14 June 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 25 May 2014 / 16.00

Peter Serkin & Bard College Conservatory of Music Orchestra

Miklós Perényi & MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Whitsun Concert with the Hungarian Radio Children’s Choir

Page 118

Page 109

Sunday 15 June 2014 / 16.00

Saturday 17 May 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 25 May 2014 / 19.00

Beethoven: The Complete Piano Concertos II Dénes Várjon & Concerto Budapest

On The Spot – the Composition Faculty II.

The Marczibányi Square Kodály School diamond jubilee closing concert

Page 100

Page 109

Page 102

Tuesday 27 May 2014 / 19.30

Sunday 18 May 2014 / 19.30

Muzsikás Group – St Ephraim Male Choir From Bartók to Bartók

Amadinda 30

Page 102

Page 109 Wednesday 28 May 2014 / 19.30

Óbuda Danubia Orchestra

Page 110 136

Page 110

Page 118

Wednesday 18 June 2014 / 19.00

Operatic sketches

Page 119

Friday 20 June 2014 / 19.00

Operatic sketches

Page 119

Friday 4 July 2014 / 18.00

Readings from Ovid Page 119

Ticket map Grand Hall

CHOIR LEFT 10 – 19

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CENTRE BALCONY The ticket maps apply to concerts organized by the Liszt Academy Concert Centre.

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Legend Category 1 Category 2 Category 3 Reserved for services

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Ticket map solti Hall

A ZENEAKADÉMIA KONCERTKÖZPONT SAJÁT SZERVEZÉSÉBEN.

Legend Category 1 Category 2 Reserved for services

Contact, Visitor Information

STAGE

Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music

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1061 Budapest, Liszt Ferenc tér 8 central phone number: (1) 462-4600 Customers can also address their inquiries to kozonsegkapcsolat@zeneakademia.hu.

Ticketing The ticket office of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre operates adjacent to the main entrance of the restored Liszt Academy at Liszt Ferenc tér 8.

Ticket office general opening times: 11 am – 6 pm Monday-Sunday.

Besides these general opening times the ticket office will also be open during concerts, from the hour preceding the start of the performance until the end of the first interval.

Ticket office contact details: Tel.: (1) 321-0690 E-mail: jegy@zeneakademia.hu

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Staff of the ticket office will be pleased to help if you have any questions concerning Liszt Academy Concert Centre tickets. Further information on ticket purchases is available at the website of the Liszt Academy.

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Liszt Academy opening times, tours

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szolgálati hely

Access

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The Liszt Academy may only be visited by the general public in guided tours that have to be booked in advance. In order to ensure undisturbed JELMAGYARÁZAT teaching conditions the building is closed to the general public during 1. kategória the day and opens 1 hour prior to the start of concerts.

For information on guided tours of the Liszt Academy please go to 2. kategória www.zeneakademia.hu.

RIGHT 8–1

BALCONY

When visiting the building guests should use the main entrance on Liszt Ferenc Square. The entrance for disabled guests and their companions can be accessed from Király Street. From here it is possible to gain mobility access by lift to the concert halls.

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IMPRESSUM Publisher:

Authors of the Concert Magazine:

Dr. Andrea Vigh, President of the Liszt Academy

András Almási-Tóth – opera director, leader of Liszt Academy’s Opera Programme, associate professor Dr. András Batta – musicologist, former president of the Liszt Academy, government commissioner Barbara Bércesi – jazz journalist Mátyás Bolya – Hungarian zither and cobza player, professor Márton Devich – journalist, editor at the Hungarian News Agency Dr. Zsuzsa Domokos – musicologist, director of the Liszt Museum Dr. Endre Raffay – art historian, head of the Department of History and Theory of Art, University of Pécs Gergely Fazekas – musicologist, assistant lecturer of the Liszt Academy Ádám Ignácz – researcher at HAS, Institute for Musicology József Kling – journalist, music critic Gergely Lakatos – Chief Engineer of the Liszt Academy, sound engineer Ferenc László – cultural historian, music critic Péter Lorenz – member of staff of the Communications Directorate János Mácsai – musicologist, piano expert Máté Mesterházi – musicologist, member of staff of the library of the Liszt Academy Szabolcs Molnár – musicologist, professor of the Bartók Conservatory Tamás Várkonyi – musicologist, artistic director of Capella Silentium Tamás Vajna – member of staff of the Communications Directorate Dániel Végh – member of staff of the Communications Directorate

Editor in Chief: Imre Szabó Stein

Managing Editor: Gergely Fazekas

Layout: Allison Advertising Kft.

Print preparation: High Voltage Kft.

Printing : Keskeny és Társai 2001 Kft .

Published by the Communications Directorate of the Liszt Academy in 4000 copies.

The organizer retains the right to modify programmes .

Finalized: 10 December 2013

Classical music concert reviews by Ferenc László, Szabolcs Molnár and Gergely Fazekas, folk music reviews by Mátyás Bolya, jazz music reviews by Barbara Bércesi.

Translators: James Stewart, Nicholas Jenkins English proofreading: Andrew Symons Photographers: Ellen Appel, András Bánkuti, András Bozsó,

György Darabos, Tamás Dobos, Gábor Fejér, Imre Földi, Eszter Gordon, Gunter Glücklich, Éva Horváth, Kaapo Kamu, Jimmy Katz, Éva Keleti, Lilla Liszkay and Dorka Taskovics, Judit Marjai, Balázs Máté, Mátyás Misetics, Ágnes Éva Molnár, Zoltán Molnár, Zsolt Pataky, Péter Puklus, Zoltán Szalay, Dezső Sziklai, Krisztián Zana With particular thanks to Ábel Szalontai (DLA) photographer, head of MOME’s Photography Department.

Liszt Academy is supported by the Hungarian Ministry of Human Resources

Strategic media partners

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