Pannon Philharmonic

Conductor

Cristian Mandeal

Having studied piano, composition and conducting at the Music High School in Brasov and the Music Academy in Bucharest, Cristian Mandeal later studied with Herbert von Karajan in Berlin and with Sergiu Celibidache in Munich. He became permanent conductor at the Targu Mures Philharmonic and the Cluj Philharmonic. Between… More

Soloist

Fazil Say

piano

The Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say was born in Ankara and studied piano and composition at the state Conservatory of his home city. The seventeen-year-old student was awarded a scholarship enabling him to work for five years with David… More

About the Programme

The influence of his people’s music as well as the style of Brahms is to be felt on the Romanian Gheorghe Enescu’s Orchestra suite No.1. (op.9.). This piece probably the least understood by his contemporaries follows the sequence of four movements of the baroque suites, starting with the very unusual Prelude for only string unisonor and timpany. The movements in the middle are influenced by the German romanticism and in the finale the Spanish Tarantella is represented. Thus the synthesis of folk music and European music is created by the composition. Most of Maurice Ravel’s works are connected to stage and dance. His two piano concertos represent rare exceptions. Ravel himself declared about the first piano concerto in G: “It is a concerto in the strictest possible sense of the word. I have composed it in the spirits of the piano concertos of Mozart and Saint-Saëns.” The first movement amalgamating Basque and Spanish characteristics as well as a little bit of jazz and the final movement are the frame for an enchanting slow movement almost like a nocturne from Chopin. The solitude of the countryside far away from towns lends its cheerful atmosphere to Symphony No. 8 of Dvořak (in G major). The simple external glamour hides a sophisticated content. The first movement is filled with the serenity of nature, whereas the composition continues with a darkness to be compared to the “Eroica” of Beethoven. The final movement rushes back to life with refreshing Czech melodies.