Robert SCHUMANN: Julius Caesar – overture, Op. 128
György Orbán: Sopra canti diversi for string orchestra
Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD: Much Ado About Nothing – suite, Op. 11
***
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 in C minor (“Fate”), Op. 67

Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor: Dániel Erdélyi

Schumann’s late Julius Caesar Overture is an exciting rarity and its performance should cause quite a stir. The same is true of Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing Suite, also inspired by a Shakespeare play. It would be worth attending the third concert of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra’s Lukács season ticket just for these two works. The concert’s young conductor, Dániel Erdélyi, will, however, also conduct Sopra canti diversi, a work for string orchestra by György Orbán, between the two Shakespearean pieces. Following the interval, the audience will get to glory in Beethoven’s evocative “Fate” Symphony, his fifth, on what promises to be an unmissable evening.

The closing evening of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra’s Lukács season ticket follows a similarly exciting running order to the two previous concerts in the spirit of uncovering rarities, exploring contrasts and presenting joyous encounters with immortal classics. Once again, we will hear music inspired by Shakespeare, but there will be two pieces on this occasion: Schumann’s Julius Caesar Overture, one of the composer’s later works, is a musical treat that is as remarkable and worth getting to know as Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing Suite. Between the two, a piece of Hungarian music: Sopra canti diversi is a three-movement work for string orchestra composed by György Orbán for the Erdődy Chamber Orchestra in 2014. After the interval, the concert will close with one of the most popular pieces of music of all time, Beethoven’s “Fate” Symphony No. 5. in C minor, in which the composer paints a portrait of the victorious emergence of man from a life of struggle. The concert will be conducted by Dániel Erdélyi, the outstanding talent of the young generation of Hungarian conductors.

*****

The Lukács season ticket consists of three concerts full of new joys to discover. Above all, two young conductors. After taking up the baton on the first evening, the seasoned maestro Domonkos Héja will then turn it over to the 31-year-old Gábor Hontvári and the 37-year-old Dániel Erdélyi, giving them a chance to helm the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra for the second and third outings on the subscription.

The programmes, too, promise much of interest for music lovers seeking fresh experiences. These include, on the first evening, the overture to Richard III, a piece by Robert Volkmann, one of the Liszt Academy’s earliest esteemed professors and a Romantic composer in his own right, followed by a bold stylistic leap into György Kurtág’s Viola Concerto. Similarly intriguing juxtapositions will emerge in the later concerts, with Tchaikovsky’s overture-fantasia The Tempest paired with Emil Petrovics’s Cantata No. 5 in the second, and Schumann’s Julius Caesar Overture leading into György Orbán’s work for string orchestra Sopra canti diversi and Erich Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing Suite in the third.

Crowning the more obscure music making up the first half of these quite masterfully researched concert programmes will be second halves each comprised of one of the most majestic pillars of the core repertoire in the form of a Beethoven symphony, starting with his Seventh in the first instalment, his Sixth, the “Pastoral”, in the second, and his Fifth, known as the “Fate Symphony”, in the third. As far as the soloists go, we will have Máté Szűcs, one of the most outstanding violists of our time, interpreting the Kurtág concerto, and Zsombor Cserményi singing the bass part in Petrovics’s cantata.