Brahms, as a composer of symphonies, is the centrepiece of the Budapest Festival Orchestra's season. Their public was able to hear his third and fourth symphonies in September, and at the end of the season, Iván Fischer and his orchestra will be completing the cycle with the first and second.
The composer was all of 20 years old when he first tried his hand at the genre: he committed his first outlines for a symphony to parchment in 1854, but swiftly stalled with the work. The continuatio...n came in 1862, when he nearly managed to complete the entire first movement, only to put it aside again afterwards. His career - at least as far as writing symphonies was concerned - went into another long hiatus. It took another decade and a half until the Symphony No. 1 was completed. What made the creative process such a long one? Brahms was afraid that it would be difficult to escape from under Beethoven's shadow, and his work would be considered to be "Beethoven's tenth”. (In any case, this is what was said to him on more than one occasion...) The work was premièred in Leipzig in November 1876.
Even despite the modest success of its predecessor, the Symphony No. 2 was not long in coming: Brahms - vanquishing his inhibitions regarding the genre - started to compose nearly immediately. "The new symphony is so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it... and the score must come out in mourning,” he wrote to his publisher, Fritz Simrock, shortly before the work's première on 30 December 1877. Simrock, however, had no reason to worry, as the composer was only joking.
He had composed one of the sunniest pieces of his life at the idyllic spa of Pörtschach on the banks of the Wörthersee. With its light musical touch, at least by the standards of Brahms, the work immediately became enormously successful. The composer's friend, Viennese surgeon Theodor Billroth, wrote of the symphony's pastoral sound that it was "full of blue skies, babbling brooks, sunshine, and cool shade”.
Presented by: Budapest Festival Orchestra
Parking information
We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
Safe ticket purchase
Dear Visitors, please note that only tickets purchased from the Müpa website and official ticket offices are guaranteed to be valid. To avoid possible inconvenience, we suggest buying tickets to our performances and concerts via the mupa.hu website, the Interticket national network (jegy.hu) or at our official ticket offices.