The Rite of Spring

24 March 2023 Friday 7.30 pm Müpa Budapest - Bartok Bela National Concert Hall

Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 4 in D major
Béla Bartók: Viola Concerto (Version prepared under Peter Bartók's supervision)
Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

Antoine Tamestit – viola

Conducted by: Gilbert Varga

Ticket prices: 7990, 6990, 5990, 4990, 3990, 3000 HUF

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Koncert galériakép — **Gilbert Varga**
conductor

1/2

In how many ways can spring come to light through music? Most certainly, in many. This programme offers three to its audience in three compositions: Haydn’s early Symphony in D major is a high-ranking fourth among his symphonies. Its light-paced freshness gives us the impression that the other hundred symphonies to come won't challenge the composer's vitality and creativity. Bartók's Viola Concerto is connected to spring in a peculiar way, as its drafts were written during the final summer of Bartók's life, and the work remained unfinished due to his death. With this tragedy, it became an example for the rebirth of a seed, which has sprouted again and again ever since, being completed by various masters: first in the 1940s, by Tibor Serly, then in 1995, with the guidance of Péter Bartók, and for the last time in 2019, by Miklós Rakos. Finally, spring's ancient and sacred nature reveals itself in Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which showcases the folk rituals of various cultures relying on Russian legends and the composer's imagination.