A masterpiece by Béla Bartók and Ferenc Liszt will be played in succession, which is not at all common – but not without merit: after all, Bartók’s academic inaugural address was about nobody else but Liszt. The first piece will be the Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion from 1943, which was rearranged from the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion written in 1937. The purpose of the rearrangement was practical: when he emigrated to America, Bartók wanted to have a representative two-piano piece at hand to play with his wife, Ditta Pásztory, in orchestral concerts. Two excellent, young Hungarian pianists will be playing the piano solo parts here: Mihály Berecz and Fülöp Ránki. “The novelty appearing in the details is not as important as the perfectly new, never-before-seen ideas related to the contents that one finds in [Liszt’s] main works, such as […]  in the first and last movements of the Faust Symphony.” This is a verbatim quotation from Bartók’s already mentioned inaugural address. For the second part of the concert, János Kovács will be conducting the Faust Symphony composed in 1854, and we will no doubt be grateful to experience its compelling originality and novelty.

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