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classical music, opera, theatre
Péter Eötvös, Máté Szűcs and Concerto Budapest
26 March 2023, Sunday
5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
one interval
Béla Bartók National Concert Hall

Wagner

Siegfried Idyll

Eötvös

Respond - Hungarian première

interval

Ives

Symphony No. 4, S. 4 (K. 1A4)

This concert by Concerto Budapest with Péter Eötvös at the helm proves that size does not matter at all when it comes to musical quality. We will start off with a birthday gift written for a small ensemble by Richard Wagner, who thought in terms of large orchestras. Then Máté Szűcs will serve as the soloist for Eötvös's own viola concerto, as reconceived for reduced forces. Finally, we will hear a Charles Ives symphony imagined for a grandiose orchestra and employing two conductors that has only been performed in Hungary once before.

On Christmas morning of 1870, which also happened to be the birthday of his wife, Cosima, Richard Wagner had a small ensemble join him by her bedroom door to wake her with a serenade he had composed: the Siegfried Idyll reworks important themes from the third act of his opera of the same title, including the melody accompanying Brünnhilde's awakening, the call of Siegfried's horn and the singing of the forest bird - here reflecting calm and balance in place of drama. Like Wagner's work, Péter Eötvös's viola concerto Respond revisits an earlier composition of his, with this current version being performed here in the composer's native country for the first time. Eötvös reworked his 1998 piece Replica in response to the pandemic situation by reducing the 49-piece orchestra to 32 while simultaneously expanding the piece itself with new musical ideas. Discussing this viola concerto, connected in many ways to his opera Three Sisters, and its title, Eötvös said: "The answers provoke new questions. In the course of the dialogue thus created, the most diverse arguments are brought in, and, like the shards of a shattered mirror, they reflect an image whose original can only be guessed at.” The music of Charles Ives is likewise incomparable to almost anything else: an insurance agent by profession, he followed unique paths with innovations that were ahead of their time. This experimentally inclined American composer began the nearly decade and a half of labour it would take to complete his most complex work, his Fourth Symphony, in 1910. This piece requiring massive forces to perform, however, would only be performed in its entirety for the first time in 1965. This concert by Concerto Budapest offers an exciting opportunity to discover (or in some cases rediscover) a piece that has never been performed at Müpa Budapest before and only once in Budapest - in 2001, then too under Eötvös's baton.

Presented by: Concerto Budapest

Conductors:

Péter Eötvös, Gergely Dubóczky

Featuring:

viola Máté Szűcs
Concerto Budapest
  • We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.

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Getting here

Müpa Budapest can be accessed by car from Soroksári út, Könyves Kálmán körút and Rákóczi Bridge.

Using public transport by the trams 1, 2, 24, by the busses 54 and 15 and by the HÉV - suburban railway H7.

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1095 Budapest, Komor Marcell u. 1. | +36 1 555 3000 Opening hours | Map

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