The condolers could pay their last respects to the great musician, Zoltán Kocsis until noon on Saturday, 19 November by placing a white flower around his catafalque set up in the entrance hall of the Liszt Academy. From 1pm, state officials and the invited, major representatives of the Hungarian music scene could say goodbye to the highly regarded pianist and conductor, who passed away on 6 November.

On behalf of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Dr. Andrea Vigh, the president of the Liszt Academy bade farewell to Zoltán Kocsis, who, as an artist, was born at the Liszt Academy and remained the academy’s own son right until his death.

“Strings in the earth and air / Make music sweet; / Strings by the river where / The willows meet.” One could imagine a Monteverdi madrigal melody accompanying this verse from the Chamber Music cycle by James Joyce. The poem’s delicate flute and lute parts evoke in my mind the open-eyed wonder of infants on discovering something new: the world is still full of gods; branches and clouds live; a caress has a taste; sight has a sound: sensation is still whole and free, not broken into fragmentary experiences.

These days we are lucky to have an abundance of incredible countertenors, but Michael Chance is totally unique in the English Baroque vocal repertoire. On 21 October he will sing in Liszt Academy’s Solti Hall an exclusive song programme with works by Dowland, Byrd and Schubert, and accompanied by Maggie Cole.

The greatness of Steve Reich is a given. In the 1960s and ‘70s, he found a rigorous solution to a pressing challenge: how to restore, after a long period of experimentation, the primal pleasures of stable harmony and a steady pulse. Reich did this in a way that was unblinkingly modern and not at all nostalgic or neo-Romantic. Reich’s influence is vast, reaching far outside classical music. On some days, as familiar shimmering patterns echo on the sound- tracks of commercials and from the loudspeakers of dance clubs, it seems as though we are living in a world scored by Reich.