The Pannon Philharmonic is again PRESENT in Müpa in the upcoming season!

 

You can readily pocket what you get at our concerts.

The ambassadors of quality are always there where they need to be. In the Kodály Centre in Pécs, the Musikverein in Vienna or Müpa in Budapest. In Season 2023/2024, the ensemble has been on Müpa's stage for two decades, giving a subscription series of five concerts, which represent a treat both for the performers and the audience: a music essence from the legendary Pécs-based orchestra under the baton of Tibor Bogányi. Such guest artists will feature at the concerts as Jennifer Pike, Leo McFall, János Balázs, Barnabás Kelemen, Gilbert Varga, Domonkos Héja, Gérard Korsten and Valentine Michaud. The programme series involves passion and solemnity, a range of familiar and yet undiscovered melodies.

The Pannon Philharmonic has announced its upcoming season under the title: PRESENT. Quoting from the season’s brochure:  ″PFZ is at home in the Kodály Centre, Müpa and the Golden Hall in the Musikverein. It is present in Pécs, Budapest and Europe, but most of all, where music falls from heaven and finds you; it hangs on there with the youth and stands on their guard along with the elderly. PFZ has been tending the sacred fire, not forgetting about their ultimate goal: music deserves the highest quality sound.″ Music lovers can purchase their subscriptions from 24 March for Müpa, where the orchestra continues with their family-friendly programme: children and teenagers between 6 and 18 can obtain a free-of-charge subscription. The Junior subscription-holders, who were underaged last year but have turned 18 by now, received a certificate of acknowledgement and their first adult subscription from the orchestra’s director on Friday.

As Zsolt Horváth, the director of PFZ put it, ″Budapest is not only one of the many concert venues where we play, but Müpa is our second home. It was only natural that we should pay homage to the capital city with two compositions in our series. Every season, it is incredible happiness to see that hundreds of people queue up to extend their subscriptions for the concerts of the Pécs-based ensemble, and we feel especially proud to witness that our audience is becoming younger.”

 

The traditional five concerts of the Friday night series in the Hungarian capital represent a true remedy for the soul. The opening concert conducted by the British Leo McFall features Bartók’s Dance Suite, written for the 50th anniversary of the Unity of Pest and Buda and regards the capital as the centre of the entire Carpathian Basin, collecting the music and culture of the ethnic groups living there. The concert will also present Max Bruch’s highly personal and excessively passionate, and romantic Violin Concerto, which thrills and enthuses violinists like Jennifer Pike, who will most probably give us a ″simply spectacular″ interpretation. Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 3, concluding the concert, is also abundant in emotions and ambitions. 

 

The series' second concert begins with Dohnányi’s Festival Overture, which opened the gala concert celebrating the unity of Pest, Buda and Óbuda in November 1923. In this composition evoking trinity, two symphony- and one wind-orchestras set off on different paths to becoming one large entity, weaving three important melodies, the National Anthem, Egressy’s Appeal and Dohnányi’s Hungarian Creed into one. The piano concerto in this concert – perhaps the most difficult of all time – Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 will find its worthy interpreter in János Balázs. Saint-Saëns thought the closing piece of the concert, his Symphony No. 3, so perfect that he decided not to write more in this genre, not even upon commission. Its byname ″Organ″ is rooted in the curious fact the organ comes to play in two movements besides the orchestral instruments. Szilárd Ferenc Kovács features as the organ soloist of the concert conducted by PFZ’s chief conductor, Tibor Bogányi.

 

The third concert enlists star composers and their pieces: Following the success of Rigoletto, La Traviata and Il Trovatore, Verdi turned into a celebrated master of Italian music life. His La forza del destino opening the concert was written during this time of his immense popularity. The concerto of the night is credited to Paganini, who was considered the ″Devil’s Violinist″. There is something bewitching already in the concept of his Violin Concerto No. 1: while the piece is in E-flat major, which sounds quite velvety with the orchestra, the soloist, Barnabás Kelemen’s instrument will play in D-sharp major. The concluding piece, Richard Strauss’ Thus Spoke Zarathustra, represents a milestone in music history; in fact, even movie scores can be grateful to it. The concert’s conductor is Maestro Gilbert Varga.

As the maestro himself commented on the ensemble, ″This marvellous orchestra is highly cooperative. In our work together, we proceeded right in the direction I had meant to proceed.”

 

In our last but one concert event, Janáček’s Sinfonietta depicts the ″contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination to fight for victory”. The following piece, Glazunov’s Saxophone Concerto, immediately became a decisive piece of the saxophone repertoire. The interpreter of this rarely heard work is the saxophone player Valentine Michaud. The programme of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 12, the closing piece of the night, focuses on the events of the 1917 Revolution and the other issues that come to mind if we are familiar with history to some extent. PFZ will be playing under the baton of Domonkos Héja.

 

The final ″episode″ of the concert series is a homage paid to European culture: it will feature Beethoven’s 1st and last symphonies, the latter also known as the anthem of the European Union. Some say that Bach is a god, Mozart, an angel and Beethoven a man who has to make his way to heaven from his own efforts. There are traces of this struggle in Beethoven's works, and he finally reaches his ultimate goal, heaven, in his Symphony No. 9. His way of seeing art turned into the alpha and the omega of future generations of composers. Although Beethoven wrote only nine symphonies, he did glorify the genre. The night’s soloists are Polina Pasztircsák, Erika Gál, Szabolcs Brickner and Krisztián Cser. The Hungarian Radio Orchestra (choral director: Zoltán Pad) and the orchestra will be conducted by Gérard Korsten, who is already a returning guest of PFZ’s.

″After rather hard work, I realised that it was a superb orchestra.” - Gerard Korsten conductor on PFZ.

″The timbres of PFZ's concert may come to life as colourful yet transparent glass pearls in your imagination: while you walk home, they rattle on in your pockets and line your hands as treasured stones. If you look into their depth, they reflect both the past and the future: they open up new perspectives and make sure you find what you are looking for.” -  Series brochure

 

The first goal is to buy a subscription so that everyone can sit in the auditorium of Müpa wherever they wish: some prefer the organ balcony, facing the conductors, watching all moves of the musicians from the balcony over the stage, others from a little further away from the loges or mid-balconies. No matter where the audience sits in the auditorium, they can be absolutely sure that our orchestra will be PRESENT on the stage of Müpa in five evenings in Season 2023/2024.

 

For further information, please visit:

I wish to extend my existing subscription for the Pannon Series / Müpa Budapest

I don't yet have a subscription for the Pannon series, but I wish to be a subscription-holder / Müpa Budapest

 

 

 

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