Bánkövi Bence, Szabó Marcell

At the album launch concert at the House of Music, the two artists will perform the entire CD. First up are two works by Igor Stravinsky, both of which were written with the help of a great Russian cello virtuoso: the Italian Suite, which uses themes from the composer's neoclassical ballet Pulcinella, was created with the help of Gregor Pjatyigorsky, while the transcription of the one-act opera Mavra was created with the collaboration of Mstislav Rostropovich. The next piece is also an adaptation, an excerpt from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's last opera, which depicts the luxurious palace of the protagonist, Tsar Dodon. This is followed by Gyula Bánkövi's talkative piece, Pain Frozen in Ice, then the Hungarian Rhapsody by David Popper, the first cello professor at the Academy of Music, who was of Czech origin and showed strong Liszt influences, as well as a rarely heard cello version of Béla Bartók's popular first rhapsody. The concert will conclude with Sergei Rachmaninoff's captivatingly beautiful Elegy, from one of his early solo piano cycles, also in a cello-piano transcription.