WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART: Serenade No. 10 in B major (“Gran partita”), K. 361
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JULES MASSENET: Le dernier sommeil de la Vierge (The Last Sleep of the Virgin)
ARNOLD SCHÖNBERG: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4

Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor: György Vashegyi

Mozart’s Gran Partita (K. 361) is a serenade and, as we know, the old definition had it that serenades would be performed as a surprise on moonlit nights. Massenet’s orchestral oratorio excerpt, Le dernier sommeil de la Vierge presents a vision of Mary’s ascension to heaven through ethereal string sounds. Through the language of music, Schönberg’s string sextet Verklärte Nacht narrates the story of a confession that cleanses the spirit. The night and the concept of glorification therefore creates a connection between the works to be performed in this concert by the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the recent Kossuth Prize-winner György Vashegyi.

If you only take a passing glance at the works to be performed by the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by the recent Kossuth Prize-winner György Vashegyi, perhaps your first observation would be that the programme for the evening is notably varied in terms of style, genre and performance apparatus. Viennese Classics, French Romanticism, Austrian turn-of-the-century music, a serenade, an excerpt from an orchestral oratorio and a string sextet arranged for orchestra – a work composed largely for wind instruments (with a single double bass solo) and two exclusively string scores. If, however, we carefully consider the themes and moods of the pieces, we may notice how delicate yet sturdy the threads are that tie the compositions together. Mozart’s serenade and Schönberg’s sextet are linked by the magic of the night, while mood of exaltation and otherworldliness is central to all three works: it is present in Adagio, the third movement of Gran Partita, the Massenet movement that envisages Mary’s ascension to heaven, and also in Schönberg’s densely chromatic late-Romantic creation. The third evening of the Ferencsik season ticket promises to be a genuinely thematic concert experience.