Brahms was 25 years old in 1858 when he completed his first piano concerto. The D minor piece was his first opus written for a full orchestra to be played in front of an audience. The drama and dark tone of this extraordinarily difficult virtuoso piece is related to the fatal illness and tragic death of Schumann, who acted as a mentor to Brahms. Beethoven's "Pastoral" Sixth Symphony dates from 1808, and he first presented it as part of a marathon composer's concert in December of that same year. One modern feature is the connecting of the third and fourth movements of the five-movement work, and the depiction of nature makes the work a forerunner to Romantic programme music. The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival orchestra was established in 1928. Over the course of its nearly a century of existence, the legendary ensemble has collaborated with an amazing series of great conductors, ranging from Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer to Seiji Ozawa, Carlos Kleiber and Riccardo Chailly. Zubin Mehta headed the festival between 1985 and 2017, another golden age in the history of work with the orchestra. Although illness unfortunately prevents the Indian-born maestro from being with us, we will get to welcome a young star conductor to the Müpa Budapest stage in the person of Lorenzo Viotti.

Rudolf Buchbinder records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest