Beethoven might by rights have been the third name. Although sitting between the symphonies of the titular giants, and not exactly stylistically. Chopin's F minor piano concerto was heard, through the fingers of the 28 year old Argentinean Ingrid Fliter. It was heard and asked to be heard: the Music Academy audience was not witness […]
Those less informed, attending last Sunday's concert, could pick up a 128 page mini-book as they arrived at the Music Academy. It contained details of the programmes for all the National Philharmonic Orchestra's concerts this year, along with programme notes and biographies of the performers. In recent years, it has been a common complaint that […]
The Hungarian National Philharmonic in LeverkusenZoltán Kocsis is a pianist, conductor and composer. In the first of two concerts at the Bavarian Kulturabteilung, where he conducted the Hungarian National Philharmonic orchestra, he introduced himself to us as a master of transcription. (…) The backbone of the program began with Béla Bartók's Third Piano Concerto. The mood […]
… Without mercy or giving in, yet with so much of beautiful musicality, Maestro Hamar at first warmed up the orchestra with Kodály's Dances from Galanta and then gave an excellent support to Kocsis, who this time performed as a soloist in Liszt's Piano Concerto No 1 in E flat major.Dramatics of the beginning and […]
Homage á Jószef Szigeti, the great Hungarian violinist and also the great musical traditions of his homeland – excluding all obviously contemporary connections – formed the basis of the 13th International Colmar Summer Festival. Many leading and famous Hungarian musical personalities from modern-day Hungary (or youngsters aspiring to join them) gave concerts in the small […]
Zoltán Kocsis is both a masterly pianist and conductor. After Renaud Capucon and Frank Braley's highly successful and momentous concert yesterday afternoon, Zoltán Kocsis put on a breathtaking performance. It was not possible to ignore a conductor who regarded Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra as his own affair, as though he himself had actually written it. […]
A festival dedicated to HungaryHungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Barnabás Kelemen (violin), Zoltán Kocsis (conductor), works by Beethoven, Bartók, Debussy, Rachmaninov. Saint Mathieu church, Colmar, XIII Colmar International Festival.Following a long established tradition, every Colmar International Festival is dedicated to one of the great artists of the past. The artistic director of the festival, Vladimir Spivakov, […]
People inevitably make comparisons. The appearance on the stage of the Saint-Matthieu church on Thursday of the Hungarian National Philharmonic, led by conductor and pianist Zoltán Kocsis, surpassed the Russian State Orchestra who played the previous day incontrovertibly.That time, there was no soaring, only the precision of a machine without the discipline causing the least […]
