With heart and soul

25 March 2022 Friday 7.30 pm Müpa Budapest - Bartok Bela National Concert Hall

Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major
Giuseppe Martucci: Nocturne in G-flat major, Op. 70 No. 1
Béla Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin - Suite

József Balog – piano

Conducted by: Tibor Bogányi

Concert estimated duration: 100 minutes

Ticket prices: 4990, 5900, 6990 HUF

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Koncert galériakép — **Tibor Bogányi**
chief conductor

1/2

Love, passion, poetry and drama would be the keywords of the pieces featured at this concert. Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 presents a mature man and a mature composer to us; the piano soloist of the piece's premiere was the master himself. Besides the piano solo part, it also offers splendid solo opportunities to the orchestra's musicians, developing into a true dialogue between the individual musical instruments. In his Nocturne in G-flat major, the late-Romantic Martucci combines Italian melodiousness with Wagnerian density and infinity. His Romantic idyll will be followed by Béla Bartók’s extraordinarily progressive music, which – despite its profanity – aims to provide a tangible manifestation of the power of love and human emotions.

"I believe I have one of the longest and most thorough working periods of my life behind me lately... it is, by the way, the fiftieth piano concerto I have learned. For a long time, I thought I'd rather not play it; then, I was asked to, and I couldn't possibly turn the request down....And now I feel that this composer wrote one of the greatest masterpieces of the piano repertoire personally for me." said pianist József Balog in an interview with Gramofon.