Hungarian Classical Music Day

This season of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra revolves around the spirit of Zoltán Kocsis. In November, they commemorate the anniversary of his death with a concert, while on his birthday at the end of May – the day on which he would each year conduct the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra in a charity concert – the orchestra, together with the Liszt Academy, are organising the Hungarian Classical Music Day with the intention of creating a tradition, nurturing old values and encouraging the birth of new ones.

Lajos Huszár’s work as a composer combines tradition with the tools of modernity. He wrote his opera Silence, based on a story by Béla Balázs, between 1994 and 1998. His work being played on this occasion is an arrangement of a section of that opera. Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1, composed around 1907-1908, was inspired by the young composer’s unrequited love for the violinist Stefi Geyer. Ernst von Dohnányi’s series of Hungarian folk songs Ruralia Hungarica was considered one of the composer’s most popular pieces during his lifetime. Dohnányi arranged five of the seven movements of the original piano version of the 1924 work for orchestra. Kristóf Baráti is one of the most significant Hungarian violinists of our time, one whose music is celebrated with great enthusiasm all over the world. The concert’s vocal soloists, Adrienn Miksch, Andrea Meláth and Máté Fülep, are all outstanding Hungarian singers. Gábor Takács-Nagy gained world renown as the founding first violinist of the Takács String Quartet, later also distinguishing himself as a conductor not only in Hungary, but also in the most important music centres of Europe.