Concerto Budapest’s now-traditional pre-Christmas concert at the Liszt Academy presents the audience with a programme of music by Tchaikovsky, and popular hits of his at that. The evening will kick off with Romeo and Juliet, which is chronologically appropriate, as it was in 1870 that Tchaikovsky wrote the first version of the overture-fantasy he dedicated to his colleague and rival Mily Balakirev. It took Tchaikovsky another ten years to finalise this composition and give it a new ending. It was during this decade that the two emblematic works to be performed at this concert were born: the extremely popular Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, whose energetic solo part will be performed by Mihály Berecz, and the Variations on a Rococo Theme, which, despite its title, is not actually of Rococo origin, but is bound to enthral the audience with the profound and virtuosic playing of István Várdai. As the closing number, we will follow tradition by including a representative sample of Tchaikovsky’s impeccably composed ballet music: this time the five-movement suite version of Sleeping Beauty from 1889.