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  • The Liszt Academy of Music (Concert Hall), © Photo: Marjai Judit
    The Liszt Academy of Music (Concert Hall), © Photo: Marjai Judit

Barber / Schubert / Bartók / Beethoven

Budapest, Franz Liszt Academy of Music — Main hall

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$ 30

About the Event

The concert programme will open with Adagio for Strings, one of the 20th century’s most popular classical music compositions. It would be no exaggeration to describe the piece as a smash hit, and its creator, Samuel Barber, was marked down as something of a single‐work composer. Following a performance of this always poignant composition, Concerto Budapest will once again welcome one of the ensemble’s most remarkable returning guests, Gidon Kremer. The great Lithuanian musician will first play the violin solo from Franz Schubert elegantly masculine Polonaise in B‐flat major, followed by Béla Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 1, a confession of love intended for the violinist Stefi Geyer. The second half of the concert will begin with the very finest slow movement of the Beethoven string quartets – the overwhelmingly beautiful cavatina from String Quartet No. 13 in B‐flat major. Finally, with András Keller as conductor, we will hear Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor, which despite – or perhaps because of – its incompleteness, feels entirely appropriate here.

Program

  • Samuel Barber – Adagio for Strings, Op. 11
  • Franz Schubert – Polonaise in B‐flat major, D. 580
  • Béla Bartók – Violin Concerto No. 1, Sz 36
  • Ludwig van Beethoven – String Quartet No. 13 in B‐flat major, Op. 130 – Cavatina
  • Franz Schubert – Symphony No. 8 in B major (‘Unfinished’), D. 759
Program is subject to change

Artists

Violin: András Keller
Orchestra, Ensemble: Concerto Budapest
Violin, Violoncello da Spalla: Gidon Kremer

Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German origin. He began to play the violin at the age of four, receiving tuition from his father and his grandfather, who were both professional violinists. He went on to study at the Riga School of Music and with David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory. He won prizes at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1967 (Second Prize), the Paganini Competition in Genoa in 1969 (First Prize) and the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1970 (First Prize).

Kremer's first concert in the West was in Germany in 1975, followed by appearances at the Salzburg Festival in 1976 and in New York in 1977. In 1981, Kremer founded a chamber music festival in Lockenhaus, Austria, with a focus on new and unconventional programming; since 1992 the festival has been known as 'Kremerata Musica' and in 1996 Kremer founded the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra, composed of young players from the Baltic region. He was also among the artistic directors of the festival 'Art Projekt 92' in Munich and is director of the Musiksommer Gstaad festival in Switzerland.

Kremer is broadly admired for his wide‐ranging repertoire, extending from Vivaldi and Bach to contemporary composers. He has championed the work of composers such as Ástor Piazzolla, George Enescu, Philip Glass, Alfred Schnittke, Lera Auerbach, Arvo Pärt, and John Adams. His partners in performance include Valery Afanassiev, Martha Argerich, Oleg Maisenberg and Vadim Sakharov. He has a large discography on the Deutsche Grammophon label, for which he has recorded since 1978, and he has also recorded for Philips and Decca. He plays a Guarneri del Gesù violin dating from 1730.

Address

Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Wesselényi utca 52, Budapest, Hungary — Google Maps

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