The name Niccolò Paganini is synonymous with virtuoso violin playing, and his Violin Concerto No. 4 in D minor, completed in 1830, is one of his most dramatic and technically difficult works. The score was believed lost for decades and was only rediscovered in the 1950s.

It showcases Paganini’s entire technical arsenal, which encompassed almost every feat possible to perform on the violin: harmonics, double stops, pizzicatos (including ones played with the left hand) and various complex bow strokes, broad melodies played on the lowest string, and runs that zigzag across the entire tonal range of the instrument.

All of this will prove a worthy challenge for the evening’s soloist, one of the most renowned interpreters of Paganini today, the German-American violinist Augustin Hadelich. – Gustav Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony No. 2 in C minor took almost six years to write and was completed in 1894. One of the most monumental works in the history of music, this was the first time that the composer employed a truly massive orchestra, along with vocal soloists and a choir, to convey a message of cosmic dimensions.

Exploring an emotional range from mourning to redemption over the course of five movements lasting nearly an hour and a half, the piece greatly expands the traditional framework of a symphony. In it, Mahler deals with the great questions of life and death, and of earthly suffering and resurrection in the afterlife, and it is also his first symphony to also incorporate the human voice. “Death, who conquers all, now you too are conquered!” sings the chorus, in the words of Friedrich Klopstock’s hopeful ode to faith. Serving as the two vocal soloists at this concert conducted by András Keller will be Polina Pasztircsák (soprano) and Dorottya Láng (alto).