Concerto Budapest pays tribute to Brahms with a two-day concert series
Culture
Concerto Budapest pays tribute to Brahms with a two-day concert series
MTI Image: Reuters
November 21, 2021
András Keller and Concerto Budapest pay tribute to the work of Johannes Brahms on November 27 and 28 in Listen to Brahms! at the Budapest Academy of Music.
Eight Brahms works will be performed in four concerts over the two days, tracing the defining moments of Brahms ’career as a composer. The guests of Concerto Budapest will be prestigious soloists and chamber musicians.
The first concert begins with a piano concerto in B major, performed by Russian-Austrian pianist Yelizaveta Leonskaya, as well as Brahms’ last, IV. symphony conducted by András Keller, with the participation of Concerto Budapest.
On the same evening, the last concert of the series, conducted by György Vashegyi and solo by Katalin Kokas and Dóra Kokas, will feature the last piece of Brahms’ orchestral oeuvre, a double concerto for violin and cello in A minor. The double concerto was written by Brahms’ old friend, Joachim József of Hungarian origin, in the last movement of the work the cello and piano merge into a ferocious Hungarian theme. Saturday’s show is one of the author’s most beautiful symphonies, III. Symphony in F major.
The Brahms Festival continues on November 28 with a chamber music concert, a sextet in B major. The pianist partner of the Keller Quartet will be Leonszkaja, Miklós Perényi will play the cello and Janka Szomor-Mekis on the viola. The ensuing Piano F minor in F minor is seen by many as the crown of Brahms’ chamber music oeuvre, with Leonszkaya also performing.
One Listen to Brahms! In the closing concert of the series, the author’s only violin competition will be performed on the artist’s Stradivari violin with a solo by Kristóf Baráti. This is followed by Brahms’ piano quartet in G minor, for which Arnold Schönberg composed the orchestral orchestra and took the energetic fourth movement in Rondo alla zingarese, the effect of the playing of Hungarian gypsy musicians becomes clear. The Concerto Budapest ensemble is conducted by András Keller, the Kossuth and Liszt Prize-winning music director.