Budapest Spring Festival

Hear the light - See the sound

Works by Joaquin Ivars, Ralf Koenemann, Katrin Altwein, Gudrun Schüler, Jean-Luc Guin’Amant, Bady Minck, Martin Breindl, Sabine Meier, Teréz Szilágyi

Artists from various European countries and cities where Liszt lived and worked are participating by invitation in the project “Hear the light – see the sound” (Synethesia).

March 18–April 3

The opera is set in Rome in the 1860s, a day (by day, at night and the following day) in the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican gardens. 

Conductor: Gergely Kesselyák
Libretto: András Papp
Direction, sets, costumes: Péter Gothár

In 1900 a new colour was added to Vienna’s already far from grey musical scene. An ensemble that set itself the goal of performing popular orchestral pieces and new works made its debut under the direction of Ferdinand Löwe. The symphony orchestra then still known as the “Wiener Concertverein” became the forerunner of today’s Wiener Symphoniker. In the early years they gave the first performances of such now standard repertoire pieces as Bruckner’s 9th Symphony, Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder or Ravel’s Piano Concerto for left hand. The orchestra has been headed by Bruno Walter, Richard Strauss, Wilhelm Furtwängler, György Széll and Hans Knappertsbusch and in the years following the Second World War by Hans Swarowsky and Josef Krips. Famous guest conductors have also worked with the ensemble, among them Leonard Bernstein, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado and Sergiu Celibidache. The guest soloist for their concert in Budapest will be the charming  22-year-old German-Japanese pianist, Alice Sara Ott. This fantastically talented musician was barely twenty when one of the leading German record companies had her record Liszt’s 12 études, among the most technically and artistically difficult series in the entire piano repertoire, and then in the Chopin anniversary year she made a highly successful recording of the complete waltzes.

Conductor: Ádám Fischer
Featuring on piano: Alice Sara Ott

Don Sanche was written by the child prodigy Liszt on his first foreign study tour. The 13-year-old composer chose his subject from one of the period’s fashionable novels of chivalry. We tend to classify such efforts among the early works, but as György Selmeczi has written: “the theatre person is soon aware of the talent oozing from the score, the musicality, the individual tone”. Together with this early work we will also hear the mature Liszt’s monumental Dante symphony according to the composer’s original, gesamtkunstwerk intentions.

Conductor: Tamás Pál
Featuring the Contemporary Ballett Szeged
Choreography: Roberto Galvan
Director: Ferenc Anger

The title of this concert of early and late Liszt songs and piano works could also be “Liszt the innovator” or “Liszt the experimenter”. He reworked and polished his compositions over and over again, ensuring a great deal of work for musicologists studying his oeuvre. It is a rare concert experience to be able to compare different versions. The programme selected by Bernadett Wiedemann and Emese Virág also draws attention to Liszt the song composer who reinterpreted the song genre and pointed the way towards Mahler.

With: Bernadett Wiedemann – voice
Emese Virág – piano

Each year the Sapporo Franz Liszt Seminar introduces fantastically talented musicians to the public at the Budapest Spring Festival. This year Erika Mikami is bringing a varied and very demanding programme. The pianist, who is also a composer, is giving a taste of modern Japanese music as well.