Concerto Budapest – Premiere

"Your songs are new and familiar at the same time. While listening to them, I feel their separate, textual existence ceases. Still they prompt me to re-read their text, or more precisely, to read them as song lyrics, immersing profusely in the details, pondering over the possibilities of a continuation, similarly to writing (and reading).” – These lines were written by Lajos Parti Nagy to the composer of the song cycle “Buffet of Existence”, Gábor Csalog, after having heard the music based on his own poems. The song cycle composed in 2019-2020 by the piano player Csalog sets seven out of the several hundred verses of the Parti Nagy poetry volume to music. The baritone solo is accompanied by piano. Later, this core material was expanded, and a tuba and accordion also joined in as accompanying instruments. The audience will now have the opportunity to hear the premiere of this expanded song cycle, followed by Csalog’s orchestral piece, Timeless, inspired by István Nádler's paintings. The three-movement symphonic composition – performed for the first time – also features a wind ensemble placed at a distance, and the dialogue of the various layers play diverse roles. The sacred chorale-like chord sequences comment on and drift into one another.