Péter Eötvös, Máté Szűcs and Concerto Budapest
A birthday present for a small ensemble by Richard Wagner, who thought in terms of large orchestras, Péter Eötvös' viola concerto reworked for a reduced orchestra with solo by Máté Szűcs, and Charles Ives' Symphony for a large orchestra, a work for two conductors, which has only been performed once in Hungary, all under the baton of Péter Eötvös, in a Concerto Budapest concert that proves that size does not matter when it comes to musical quality.
Schedule
On Christmas Day 1870, Richard Wagner woke the birthday girl Cosima with music, serenading her with a small ensemble at the door of his wife's room: the Siegfried Idyll takes up important themes from the third act of the opera, including the melody accompanying Brünnhilde's awakening, Siegfried's hornsong and the song of the forest bird - calm and poised instead of dramatic. Like Wagner's work, Péter Eötvös's viola concerto Respond is a reinterpretation of an earlier composition, and is being performed in its present form for the first time in Hungary. Eötvös reworked his 1998 piece Replica to reflect the pandemic situation: the forty-nine-piece orchestra was reduced to thirty-two, and the work was simultaneously expanded with new musical ideas. The viola concerto and its title, which is linked to the opera Three Sisters in several ways, was the composer's comment: 'The answers raise new questions. In the dialogue that results, a wide variety of arguments are put forward, reflecting, like shards of a shattered mirror, an image whose origin can only be guessed at."
Müpa Budapest
Müpa Budapest is one of Hungary's best-known cultural brands and one of the most modern cultural institutions, bringing together different artistic disciplines in a unique way: it hosts classical, contemporary, light, jazz and world music, opera, new circus, dance, literature and film.
