31 October 2019, Thursday
7:30 pm — 10 pm
Péter Eötvös: Zero Points
Péter Eötvös: Speaking Drums
Péter Eötvös: Per Luciano Berio
Liszt: Dante Symphony, S. 109
It is a rare thing for the Artist of the Season and the Ensemble of the Season to give a joint concert. This, nevertheless, is exactly what is taking place here: the artist of the season is a composer and conductor who will be taking the podium before the ensemble of the season. The audience can look forward to an extremely exciting programme of unique works!
Péter Eötvös's concerto for percussion instruments, Speaking Drums, relies on a performer who can handle the various instruments with peerless virtuosity, but with evocative acting abilities beyond all imagination, as the musician also has to speak, delivering Sándor Weöres's nonsense verses while playing. Speak? Whisper, yell... portraying the most diverse possible array of psychological states. The 36-year-old Austrian phenomenon Martin Grubinger, for whom Eötvös wrote this unique - but still highly approachable and pleasant-sounding - piece accomplishes his task with indescribable perfection: it is a brilliant achievement. One has to see it and hear it! Speaking Drums dates from 2012/2013, and of the other works by Eötvös being played, zeroPoints was written in 1999 (Pierre Boulez premièred it with the London Symphony Orchestra), and the brief piece Per Luciano Berio in 2003, although it was only scored in 2018.
The Dante Symphony, the work of Liszt's being played in the second half of the programme, places the ensembles of the season - the Hungarian National Philharmonic and the Hungarian National Choir - in the spotlight. Is it perhaps a bit odd to hear pieces by Eötvös and Liszt on the same evening? On the contrary, nothing could be more natural, as the two are both open-minded and original-thinking modern composers oriented along an incredibly broad spectrum of inspiration...
Conductor: Péter Eötvös
Featuring:
percussion Martin Grubinger
Hungarian National Choir (choirmaster: Csaba Somos)