The opening piece in the Beethoven piano sonata canon is the work in E-flat major composed in 1795, which the 25-year-old up-and-coming musician dedicated to Joseph Haydn, his master who encouraged him and took him on as a student. In the wake of this four-movement composition, there is one of the most challenging sonatas in the oeuvre, that is, demanding the greatest technical virtuosity, dating from eight years later, in the summer of 1804. The C major (Waldstein) sonata commemorates the name and memory of Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein, an enthusiastic patron of the arts and aristocrat with most eccentric nature, who first met the youthful Beethoven in Bonn and played a key part not only in having the brilliant artist move to Vienna but also that he could take lessons from Haydn. Soloist for this concert is Ádám Balogh who can say that – through his parents – he ‘originates’ from Pannon Philharmonic and was playing in concert with Iván Fischer and Budapest Festival Orchestra aged just 13. Since then his adult career has truly taken off, and in a most eye-catching way, too: in 2019, he attained second place at the Liszt Academy’s Bartók World Competition.