photo: Mary Slepkova

The programme for this concert presents two large-scale masterpieces and will feature an appearance from the Russian violinist Sergei Krylov, who is always greeted in Budapest with enthusiastic acclaim. We will hear Krylov perform the solo to Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D major, which the composer wrote for his good friend, the virtuoso Joseph Joachim, who was of Hungarian origin. Though disparaged by critics in its own time, the concerto has now long been considered an undisputed classic. On this evening, it will be paired with a work that Beethoven described with every justification as “The greatest work I have ever written.” Missa Solemnis, which will be performed with András Keller as conductor, was originally intended to mark the inauguration of Archduke Rudolph – Beethoven’s brilliant former student – as the Archbishop of Olomouc. Except that the composition became increasingly monumental in size, and consequently took much longer to complete. This meant that the archbishop had already been in high office for three years by the time he heard the work’s partitura, while the world premiere of the composition took place not in Olomouc but in Saint Petersburg, in April 1824. It would take even longer for Missa Solemnis to earn its rightful place in the concert repertoire, perhaps finally fulfilling Beethoven’s wish that he inscribed above the Kyrie movement: “From the heart – may it return to the heart!”