MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Our Kossuth Prize-winning conductor Ádám Medveczky, whose career launched in 1974 when he won second prize at the Hungarian Television conductors’ competition behind Kobayashi, presents a work each by four Hungarian composers. Sándor Balassa, an Erkel, Bartók–Pásztory and Kossuth Prize laureate composer, was born in 1935. He has written four operas, cantatas and orchestral works; Hungarian Dances dates from the early part of his career. ▪ János Viski was a student of Zoltán Kodály, and in fact it was Kodály himself who recommended Viski as his successor to the composition department of the Liszt Academy. Ede Zathureczky debuted his Violin Concerto in 1947. The soloist of our concert is Márta Ábrahám, professor at the Liszt Academy, whose doctoral dissertation was on Hungarian violin concertos written after 1945, including this János Viski piece. ▪ Ernő Dohnányi’s composition Symphonic Minutes was designated as ballet music. It premièred in 1933 at a concert marking the 80th anniversary of the foundation of the Budapest Philharmonic Society. ▪ György Ránki’s fairy tale opera King Pomade’s New Clothes of, with libretto by Amy Károlyi, was presented in the Opera House in 1951, to thunderous applause. The two orchestral suites created from extracts from the opera remain popular concert works to this day.