Concerto Budapest will be dedicating its concerts slated for the last weekend of May predominantly to the music of Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, with Gábor Takács-Nagy taking up the baton before his select group of outstanding musicians.

The first in this series of programmes will open with an opus featuring an unusual configuration of instruments: Schumann’s 1849 concert piece composed for four horns and full orchestra, which the composer, who was rarely satisfied with himself, described as “one of my finest works.” Mendelssohn’s sense of self-esteem was undoubtedly much more balanced, an unsurprising fact given the unbroken success he enjoyed throughout his career.

This included his Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, here being performed by soloist Dénes Várjon, which Mendelssohn himself premiered in 1831 at the age of 22 in Munich, in front of the king of Bavaria, to thundering applause.

As for his other composition on the programme, the Symphony No. 3, which deals with his experiences from his visit to Scotland, the sight of wildly romantic landscapes, and the influence of historical memories. Although Mendelssohn spent more than a dozen years refining it before its premiere in Leipzig in 1842, it can still be listened to today as one of the most enchanting examples of Romantic music.