Heinz Holliger and the Concerto Budapest No 1

“He was an extremely introverted, secretive person [...] he lived the life of a hermit, and he didn’t like to talk. [...] Of course, he spoke to me about his own works more than to others because we were in a very close relationship.” This is how Heinz Holliger (who although in his eightieth year still works tirelessly) remembered Hungarian-born Sándor Veress, who spent the second half of his life in Switzerland. Holliger opens the concert with a Veress work: the six-movement chamber orchestral Divertimento was composed when the Hungarian was under 30. The continuation evokes Mendelssohn and Weber, two masters of the first generation of German romanticism, by the play of two outstanding pianists. “For days my head has been in a whirl of drums and trumpets (trombe in C). I don’t know what will come of it.” This is from a letter written by Schumann in 1845, and we can discern this motif in the fanfares of the first movement of Symphony No. 2. The letter was addressed to Mendelssohn, and just a year later he conducted the world premiere of this symphony designed with self-healing in mind in Leipzig.