Georges BIZET: L’Arlésienne – Suite No. 1
Camille SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22
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Johannes BRAHMS: Symphony No. 3 in F minor, Op 90

Alexander Malofeev piano
Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: György Vashegyi

Grace, variety, colour – Bizet’s Suite No. 1 from the incidental music to L’Arlésienne (The Girl from Arles) offers all this and more. Camille Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor dazzles the listener with its stylistic multiplicity, while Brahms’s Symphony No. 3 in F major does the exact opposite: it is an extremely unified piece of music that faithfully represents the composer’s distinctive voice. The fifth concert of the Hungarian National Philharmonic’s Kocsis season ticket will be conducted by the orchestra’s chief music director, György Vashegyi. The piano concerto promises to keep us on the edges of our seats as its soloist is the stunningly talented Alexander Malofeev. The Russian virtuoso, who is just 23 years old, returns after his previous successful guest appearance with the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra.

It is not enough that Georges Bizet’s life only lasted 36 years, posterity has also reduced his legacy to a single work. Although Carmen is undoubtedly a work of genius, the French romantic of singular taste produced much more output of value. Here we will hear Suite No. 1 from the incidental music to the Alphonse Daudet play L’Arlésienne (The Girl from Arles), a piece of work full of invention, richly blended colours and striking character. The same abundance of hues is also typical of Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor – and it is perhaps this quality of the work the noted Polish pianist and composer Zygmunt Stojowski picked out when he ironically joked that the composition begins with Bach and ends with Offenbach. Stylistic heterogeneity is not a feature typical of one of Brahms’s most popular works, Symphony No. 3 in F major, however, as the piece captures the unique voice of the composer from the first note to the last. It is Brahms through and through. The fifth concert of the Kocsis season ticket will be conducted by the Kossuth Prize-winning chief music director of the Hungarian National Philharmonic, György Vashegyi, while the marvelously talented young Russian musician Alexander Malofeev, who is just 23 years old, returns as the soloist for the piano concerto after his previous successful guest appearance with the ensemble.

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The concerts on the Kocsis season ticket mainly feature 19th-century masterpieces, with a primary focus on the musical literature of the Romantic movement. Each night will feature a different large-scale, representative work: Ravel’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s cycle Pictures at an Exhibition, the Richard Strauss symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben, Saint-Saëns’s ‘Organ’ Symphony, the Rossini Stabat Mater, and Brahms’s Symphony No. 3.

Adding yet more colour to the overall picture will be such compositions as Smetana’s Bartered Bride Overture, the Liszt symphonic poem Orpheus, and Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suite No. 1. The selection of concertos for this subscription includes both greatest hits (Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor and Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor) and some treasures deserving wider attention (the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor and his Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor). However, these evenings are not restricted to Romanticism or even the 19th century: we will also get to hear Debussy’s symphonic prelude L’Après-midi d’un Faune, as well as some Mozart, in the form of his Kyrie in D minor and the instrumental suite compiled from his opera Thamos, König in Ägypten.

As for the soloists: Valentin Magyar and József Balog are both local favourites when it comes to Hungarian pianists, and the voices of Selene Zanetti, Francesco Demuro, Atala Schöck and Gábor Bretz are always a delight to listen to. Also on the schedule are the world-famous French cellist Aurélien Pasca and the celebrated Russian piano virtuoso Alexander Malofeev, along with a host of international star conductors: Carlo Montanaro, Lawrence Foster, Jean-Claude Casadesus and Pier Giorgio Morandi. Taking up the baton for the final concert will be the ensemble’s general music director, György Vashegyi.