Mozart / Orbán / Mahler

Mozart / Orbán / Mahler

As with people, certain individual artistic genres prove to be great survivors among their kind. The key in both cases is the capacity for renewal. The eternally youthful veteran of musical genres, with more than a quarter of a millennium of history behind it, is the symphony. This concert by the Pannon Philharmonic playing under the baton of Gergely Kesselyák offers a chance to hear three different symphonies: one from the 18th century, another from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and between the two, the world premiere of a new work by Müpa Budapest's Composer of the Season, György Orbán.

Mozart's symphony bearing the number 183 in the Köchel catalogue was dubbed the ‘Little G minor' in order to distinguish it from the ‘Great G minor' (K. 550), the middle member of the trio of late symphonies, which reflects a troubled state of mind. The ‘little' G minor lacks none of this unsettled tone either, as this magnificent piece composed in 1773 is an example of the pre-Romantic Sturm und Drang trend. Mahler's Fourth Symphony includes numerous playful, childlike elements. For example, the soprano soloist's finale relates what life is like in heaven by adapting a text from the folk poetry collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magic Horn). Featured between Mozart and Mahler is a new work: György Orbán's Symphony No. 2, which despite being the most recent of the three compositions on the programme for the evening, also fits into a spot between Mozart and Mahler from a stylistic point of view as well. Classically structured and scored, the four-movement work employs references to folk songs, sophisticated harmonic techniques, powerful sonorous climaxes and sensitively arcing melodies. The 200-year-old Pannon Philharmonic has been operating as a professional orchestra since 1984, and conducting this concert is the extremely popular and versatile Gergely Kesselyák, who has brought a unique colour and fresh energy to the Hungarian concert scene since the '90s.

The concert will be preceded from 6.30 pm by an introductory presentation entitled Prologue. For more information, please consult the Müpa Budapest website in the weeks leading up to the concert.

Conductor: Gergely Kesselyák

Featuring:
soprano: Polina Pasztircsák
Pannon Philharmonic

Presented by: Müpa Budapest