The weekend around piano and Franz Liszt could not end but with a tribute to the works of the ingenious Hungarian for piano and orchestra. A brilliant pianist himself and the author of numerous solo works for piano, Liszt was also a wizard of orchestration, the man who established the musical form of the symphonic poem and paved the way for modern writing for orchestra, from Wagner to John Williams. Alongside his two concertos for piano and orchestra will be a series of shorter works in which the brilliant sound of the piano is juxtaposed with the inexhaustible combinations of orchestral timbres. The programme includes three of them: Beethoven’s Fantasia on the Ruins of Athens, Fantasia on Hungarian Themes, and Totentanz. The works are performed by three brilliant young Greek virtuosos of the younger generation together with the ERT National Symphony Orchestra and a young conductor who has already enjoyed an enviable career in Germany.
Liszt In the Centre
Groundbreaking composer, transcendent pianist – the greatest in his time, if not in the entire history of music – pioneering creator, great conductor, “inventor” of the solo recital as we know it today, a constant collaborator and sincere friend to all the great composers of his time, Franz Liszt (1811-1886) is an entirely fitting theme for this year’s piano weekend. A central, but not exclusive theme: as last year, the weekend is full of different and varied offerings, giving the audience the opportunity to get to know the instrument, its literature and its performers without barriers or prejudices.
