József Lendvay, Kálmán Oláh, János Balázs

The ‘Devil’s violinist’, as he was known even in his own lifetime, entered the hall of immortal fame in music history not only in his own right but also via Liszt. Paganini so bewitched the 20-something piano virtuoso that he composed an entire series of etudes – six in all – to his famous Caprices. When in 1832 Liszt first heard Paganini during the latter’s second Paris tour, he wrote to a student: “I practice 4-5 hours a day! If I don’t go completely mad, you will discover an artist in me. ‘And I, too, am a painter!’ cried Michelangelo the first time he beheld a chef d’oeuvre. Although insignificant and poor, your friend cannot leave off repeating those words of the great man ever since Paganini’s last performance. What a man, what a violin, what an artist! God, what suffering, what misery, what tortures in those four strings!” What Liszt could do 200 years ago, what is there to stop a pianist doing today? The question is not totally rhetorical, since at the concert we can instantly view Paganini’s original works in two mirrors: pianist János Balázs plays the Liszt etudes and Kálmán Oláh, one of the finest improvizational jazz pianists in the country, his own arrangements. Before the performance of these two artists, violinist József Lendvay tackles the original Caprices in a way that would make Paganini himself jealous.