This is not the first time that Péter Csaba, chief conductor of the MÁV Symphony Orchestra, is bringing world-famous instrumental soloists to Hungary. Many people see French trumpeter David Guerrier as the reincarnation of Maurice André. Guerrier studied in Lyon, and even during his student years was playing with the European Union Youth Orchestra, where he was heard by renowned conductors, resulting in invitations for solo engagements from early on. His ability to play both horn and trumpet, and to perform extraordinarily demanding, even virtuoso, concert pieces on both, is quite a rarity.
In Mahler's First Symphony, the composer's imagination was still being restrained by tradition. The first movement is, in essence, a beautiful nature scene, and then the Scherzo, the genre inherited from Beethoven, becomes a fiendishly developed dance. The third movement, with its slow tempo, reveals another remarkable world to us, while the pace of the finalé is downright dizzying. The worked was premièred in 1889 in Budapest, under the baton of the composer himself – during the period when Mahler was music director of the Hungarian Royal Opera House here.

Presented by: MÁV Symphony Orchestra