Oksana Lyniv and Concerto Budapest

“Gute skizze” – so the elderly Richard Strauss signalled his satisfaction with the sketched-out ideas from which his final purely instrumental work, Duet Concertino, was formed in December 1947, in the process giving artists of the clarinet and bassoon a true joy-to-play piece – in our case, for Csaba Klenyán and Bálint Mohai. While working on his Piano Concerto in G major, Maurice Ravel supplied the soloist with a no less spectacular part; in the end, the principal part of the concerto proved to be so demanding that the composer – wisely – decided against trying to play it himself at the premiere. Thus the opportunity passed to Marguerite Long in 1932 now goes to the most excellent Zoltán Fejérvári. The final number in the programme overseen by the Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv, whose career has been on a steep upward trajectory, is another classic French repertoire piece: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony (1886), dedicated to the memory of Liszt who had died shortly after its debut. Since its premiere, it has had a major influence in concert halls around the world.