Thursday, 13 October 2019, 7.30 pm
Vigadó Concert Hall | Ceremonial Hall
Lukács Season Ticket/1.
...Like the whispering of trees
MOZART: Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201
HINDEMITH: Concerto for Winds, Harp and Orchestra
***
BIZET: Symphony in C major
Imre Kovács – flute
Béla Horváth – oboe
Zsolt Szatmári – clarinet
Pál Bokor – bassoon
Deborah Sipkay – harp
Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Csaba Somos
This concert will open and close with works by teenagers. Mozart was 18 years old when he
composed his four-movement Symphony No. 29 in A major. At the mid-point of his life, one
could say. As he had almost exactly that much time left – with a difference of only a few
weeks – before he met his fate. It is a truly professional composition, opening and closing
fresh and lively movements, an andante that refrains from overdoing the passions and an
elegant minuet.
Georges Bizet was in no more than his 17th spring when he started work on
his likewise four-movement Symphony in C major. This was his first serious effort in the
genre. (Mozart had already written a number of symphonies before the A major, and would go
on to compose a dozen more afterwards.) Interestingly, the first movement of the young
Frenchman's work resembles the music of Mozart. The second movement recalls Berlioz,
with a romantically soaring melody highly appropriate for the year 1855. Between the two
pieces by youngsters, the orchestra will play the music of a mature man who kept a bit of his
childhood with him well past middle age. Even in his advanced years, Paul Hindemith
enjoyed playing with his model railroad at home. His music also reveals a kind of playful
streak. He felt that, even in the 20th century, it was worth resurrecting the pulsing motor-like
rhythmic world and polyphonic weaving of different parts of Baroque concertos, along with,
of course, more modern – harsher and sharper – harmonies.