Ádám Medveczky & Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra Presented by Liszt Academy

“The greatest aspiration in life is to stand by one’s ideals and strive unceasingly to achieve them.” Ferenc Liszt supplemented the programme of his symphonic work The Ideals, after the poem by Schiller, with this thought. The piece, which is about the ups and downs of an artistic career, ambition, failure, relentless struggle and the looming shadows of encroaching loneliness, would perhaps be overly pessimistic without this addition, thus it concludes with a maxim of universal truth that can be considered a general, artistic creed. This creed served as a compass not only in the career of Liszt but Erkel, Kodály and Bartók as well. The Liszt Academy opened its doors 146 years ago, on 15 November 1875, with five professors and 38 students. In the nearly one and a half centuries since, every teacher and every student has striven to realize the Lisztian ideals.