János Palojtay Presented by Liszt Academy

Songs without words? An apparent contradiction, even though it refers to an actual genre with which innumerable concert programmes could be filled. The Age of Romanticism witnessed the rise of brief lyrical piano pieces that were strongly reminiscent of Lieder in style. The genre proper came into being through Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who invented the term “songs without words”. However, this concert will feature works that fit into a somewhat broader interpretation of the term: piano arrangements of actual Lieder with words, compositions whose titles refer to songs but actually never had words to them, piano transcriptions of folk songs and even a piece written for the voice – but without words. All this will be delivered to the audience by piano recitalist János Palojtay, who graduated from the Liszt Academy in 2011, debuted in the Budapest Opera House under the baton of Christopher Hogwood, and has since given concerts with various Hungarian orchestras at the Palace of the Arts in Budapest, the Liszt Academy and elsewhere.