Liszt and Europe
September 29 – October 2, 2011
Années de pèlerinage – Years of Pilgrimage. This title of Franz Liszt’s three-volume piano cycle could also be the motto for the composer’s life and art. His constant internal pilgrimage led Liszt from his virtuoso youth, through the great works of his mature years, to the distilled but still enigmatic world of his old age.
Besides the well known and deservedly popular piano works, the 2011 bicentennial Liszt festival also offers a large selection of Liszt’s less familiar, atmospheric chamber works, and his songs that recreated in musical form verses by great poets of the 19th century. Together with Liszt himself, we evoke the brilliant performing artists and composers of his time: in particular Paganini and Chopin who had a great influence on Liszt.
Following the path opened by Liszt, such great figures in the history of music as Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Bartók or Busoni developed their own individual voices. We aim to show this striking influence in the works to be performed at our concerts, together with selected compositions by Liszt.
One of the special attractions of the festival promises to be the Hungarian première of Lieux Retrouvés, a piece composed for cello and piano by one of the most acclaimed British composers of our time, Thomas Adès. It is a great pleasure for us that one of the chief participants in our festival will be the renowned British cellist Steven Isserlis, who gave the first performance of this concert piece in Europe and in the US, and I will be able to play the work with him.
Dénes Várjon, artistic director
With: Arvid Engegard, József Lendvay (violin), Ditta Rohmann, Steven Isserlis (cello), Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Lúcia Megyesi-Schwarz, Tünde Szabóki (voice), Izabella Simon, Dénes Várjon, István Lajkó, Zoltán Fejérvári, Ferenc Rados (piano), Hanna Weinmeister (violin), Andrea Vigh (harp)
The festival will be supplemented by concerts in the Millenáris of the Music Masters On Air project initiated by the European Festivals Association, where young Hungarian and foreign pianists will perform piano works composed for the Liszt Year.
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