Of course, playing with the letters of the alphabet is no more serious an occupation than numerology, yet it is still interesting what a strong line the initial letter B has had in the history of music. This concert features pure B-initial giants, Bach, Beethoven and Bartók, as well as the also perfectly suited Luciano Berio, who in 2001 wrote a chamber orchestra transcription of the ‘unfinished fugue’ in The Art of Fugue. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in G major was the last concerto in which the titan actually played the solo part himself at its premiere. This time, it is played in a performance by Dezső Ránki: reinforcing once again the long-established, marvellous artistic collaboration with András Keller and Concerto Budapest, working the Beethoven piano concerto perhaps most closely associated with his temperament. “Perhaps my improved state of health contributed to the successful completion of a new orchestral work [...], a somewhat lengthy piece lasting around 40 minutes in five movements. I worked on this a great deal throughout September without injuring my health,” Béla Bartók wrote in December 1943, with reference to the Concerto that crowned his oeuvre.