Venues
Events
MediaMusic
Hungarian Echoes
NY Phil presents a philharmonic festival conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Born in Helsinki, Finland, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s first experience with conducting came in 1979 with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, though he still thought of himself principally as a composer; in fact, Salonen has said that the primary reason he took up conducting was to ensure that someone would conduct his own compositions.
In 1983, however, he replaced an indisposed Michael Tilson Thomas to conduct a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London at very short notice without ever having studied the score before that time, and it launched his career as a conductor.
Premiering March 10, Salonen leads the NY Phil on a journey through three eras of Hungarian folk music in Hungarian Echoes: A Philharmonic Festival. He will conduct the Philharmonic and acclaimed guest artists as they perform music from three trailblazing composers with ties to Hungary — Haydn, Ligeti, and Bartok.
Highlights include Haydn’s Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Symphonies; Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle as well as his Concerto for Orchestra, Piano Concerto No. 1, and Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin; and Ligeti’s Piano Concerto, Concert Românesc, and Clocks and Clouds.
Guest artists are pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Olli Mustonen, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, bass Gábor Bretz and actress Marthe Keller, who will recite the Bard’s Poem at the beginning of Bartók’s opera, Bluebeard’s Castle.
Repertoire
Ligeti composed his Concert Românesc in 1951, only five years before he left his native Hungary to escape Stalinist tyranny.
Haydn probably composed his Symphony No. 7, Le Midi, toward the beginning of his time at the Eszterházy court, and the work is generally thought of as the second symphony in a trilogy that begins with the Symphony No. 6.
Bartók’s one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle represents the Hungarian composer’s first and only essay in the genre. The story, which recounts the horrific crimes of the 15th-century Marshal of France, Gilles de Retz, was transformed into a fairy tale by Charles Perrault and later into a libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck.
More event info here.