BACH / MOZART / BRUCKNER // Kelemen / Keller

Barnabás Kelemen serves as the soloist for not just one, but two violin concertos: this is the out-of-the-ordinary first-rate experience we have in store for us in the first half of the programme. While it is true that the Bach composition in D minor that opens the evening is primarily known as a keyboard concerto, even apart from the debates among music historians as to the original form of the work, it is also often heard in concert halls as a reconstructed violin concerto. Although the violin concerto in B-flat major to follow is Mozart’s first effort in the genre, this entire youthful work – and especially its finale, which is delightfully dynamic and brings the soloist’s virtuosity into play – deserves its place in the repertoire. “Once I came home and was very sad; I thought to myself that the master could not possibly live much longer, then the Adagio in C-sharp minor came to my mind.” This is how Anton Bruckner, whose repertoire is the subject of special focus from the music world in this bicentenary year of his birth, recalled the foreboding moment of inspiration for the central movement of his Seventh Symphony, which bids farewell to Richard Wagner, the role model he admired so much.