SUMMARY

This concert is an encounter between Müpa Budapest’s current Composer of the Season and Artist of the Season, with Andrey Boreyko taking the helm of the Prague Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1934, for a world première, a Hungarian première and a popular Romantic symphony. Commissioned by Hamburg’s TONALi for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Judit Varga’s composition Happy Birthday Major Ludwig was performed for the first time at the Elbphilharmonie. The subtitle ‘kinetic music’ refers to the musical representation of kinetic energy, a concept that has fascinated Varga for years. Although the composer says she did indeed quote a few major chords from Beethoven – the likely source of the ambiguous ‘major’ in the title – it was primarily the energy characteristic of his music that she was aiming to capture: energy that is capable of stirring a huge crowd and then pushing on relentlessly – until it stops, only to gain momentum once again. Fazıl Say’s double concerto, initiated by Gábor Boldoczki and commissioned by Müpa Budapest, reflects on the possibilities of the trumpet. In the work, Boldoczki is joined by his fellow virtuoso of the instrument Sergei Nakariakov on B-flat trumpet, piccolo trumpet and flugelhorn. In the first movement, we hear the pleas of the solo instruments, made all the more powerful and realistic by the rhythmic freedom of their calls and dialogues within the varying tempos of the musical fabric. The second movement begins with an irregular rhythm, dramatic and slow, followed by an extremely rapid Presto section with piccolo trumpets resembling a ‘water dance’, before returning to the movement’s initial atmosphere. The final movement is based on the melodies Say developed for his piano piece In Memoriam after the 2015 terrorist attack on the Ankara railway station. All this is brilliantly complemented by Antonín Dvořák’s serene and bucolic Symphony No. 8 in G major, which conforms to classical ideals. As the piece opens, the anxious tone of the melody in the orchestra’s middle registers is relieved by the birdsong of the flutes, and after the joyful outburst of the next theme, the other themes of the movement follow one another like constantly changing landscapes. Thematic richness also pervades the slow movement, which evokes the sound of the opening melody of the work with a slow chorale-like motif. The folklike middle part of the third movement forms a marked contrast with its emotional Slavic-sounding waltz, one made all the more exciting by the triple metre of the melody and the double metre of the accompaniment. The lavish trumpet fanfare of the finale is followed by a solemnly dignified relative of the symphony’s opening melody, repeated in variations of countless different characters.