At this concert, we can enjoy the voices of Richard Strauss, who is a double-faced master. In his early and late career, his compositions would be explicitly Romantic, while in the middle phase, as a pioneer of 20th-century music, he would strain the limits of tonality. However, the various periods of his career have in common that his orchestral parts would always represent a great challenge for musicians. It is, therefore, no coincidence that in musicians' circles, he is often referred to as Richard Stress. This night, though, no trace of stress will come upon our audience. Instead, they can relish pleasant melodies and dynamic caprices. In the symphonic poem based on the legend of Don Juan, the lyrical "I" seeks the ideal woman with an ever-growing passion, yet in vain. The  Horn Concerto No. 1  presents to us the 18-year-old Richard Strauss, who would compose horn music with great confidence despite his young age as the son of one of the best hornists of the day. Thus, he wrote one of the most popular pieces of the French Horn repertoire in his youth. 

Every year since 2008, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Müpa Budapest have put on an all-day marathon production presenting the very best work of a given composer, with a series of consecutive concerts from morning until late evening at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall and the Festival Theatre. After marathons centred on Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Bartók, Bach, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn and Schumann, Brahms, Bernstein and the music of America, Debussy and Ravel, and then Beethoven again, and with the Liszt and Berlioz marathon held online owing to the coronavirus, this season the spotlight will focus on Richard Strauss. The German composer's long and remarkable career spanned from the second half of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th, and he impacted the development of modern music, including the early efforts of Béla Bartók, with both his operas and symphonic poems. The list of performers will once again consist of outstanding soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras from the Hungarian music scene. In addition, students from the Liszt Academy are looking forward to welcoming visitors to their free concerts in the Glass Hall, while a memorable performance will be shown on the screen in the Auditorium.

The artistic director of the series is Iván Fischer.

Presented by: Budapest Festival Orchestra, Müpa Budapest