A legendary Portuguese pianist, a marvellous British conductor who has been inspiring his audience with superb productions since the beginning of his career, and one of the finest orchestras in Northern Europe. Their programme guides the audience from 20th-century Swedish music through Viennese Classicism to German Romanticism, enriching those present with the memory of the stellar hours they spent listening.
The predecessor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1927, and the ensemble has been operating under its current name since 1965. Throughout its history, it has been led only by the very finest conductors: Sergiu Celibidache, Herbert Blomstedt, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yevgeny Svetlanov and Manfred Honeck. Heading these musicians since 2007 is Daniel Harding. Now in his late forties, the conductor developed under the guidance of mentors like Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado at the start of his career. Maria João Pires is an exceptional individual in today's music world: an unparalleled performer and free spirit. It is no coincidence that Mozart is what she will be playing, as she is one of the most inspired performers of the works of the Salzburg-born master. The Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major is the jewel of the composer's mature Viennese concert output from 1785. Bookending the concerto are two symphonic poems. Hugo Alfvén's piece En Skärgårdssägen (A Legend of the Skerries, 1904) explores a northern theme in the late-Romantic style of the Swedish composer, known as both a writer and a painter, while Richard Strauss's extremely popular 1896 composition Also sprach Zarathustra based on Nietzsche's philosophical ‘world poem' depicts Man's search for his path forward with a thousand colours and characters.
The concert will be preceded from 6.30 pm by an introductory presentation entitled Prologue. For more information, please consult the Müpa Budapest website in the weeks leading up to the concert.
Presented by: Müpa Budapest
Alfvén: A Legend of the Skerries - symphonic poem
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467
R. Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
Conductor: Daniel Harding
Featuring:
piano: Maria João Pires
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra