Alpha and Omega

03 May 2024 Friday 7.30 pm Müpa Budapest - Bartok Bela National Concert Hall

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 1
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9

Natália Tuznik – soprano
Erika Gál – alto
Szabolcs Brickner – tenor
Krisztián Cser – bass
Hungarian Radio Choir (Choral director: Zoltán Pad)

Conducted by: Gérard Korsten

Ticket prices: 8990, 7490, 5990, 4990, 3990, 1000 HUF

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Koncert galériakép — **Gérard Korsten**
conductor

1/6

Haydn wrote 104 symphonies, Mozart 41, so Beethoven grew into a long-established, full-fledged genre in which the two great masters of the period had already shown nearly everything within the realm of possibility. Beethoven, the ever-serious man with the permanent wish to make an impact, knew what a great challenge he was taking upon himself with a symphony played before an audience. Even though his Symphony No. 1 was closely related to Haydn’s symphonies, it angered the critiques already with its first chord. If they had only anticipated what would follow in Beethoven's oeuvre… Some say that Bach is a god, Mozart, an angel and Beethoven, a man who has to make his way to heaven by 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. This grappling path, this timbre, this symphonic ideal and this way of seeing art turned into the alpha and the omega of future generations of composers. Although Beethoven authored only nine symphonies, these topped the symphony glorified by Haydn and Mozart.