The Egmont Overture was written to accompany Goethe's drama, and the rarely heard Elegischer Gesang is set to a short poem by Johann Christoph Friedrich Haug and commemorating the death of an earlier poet, Johann Georg Jacobi. The other cantata rarity in the programme, Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt, returns to Goethe by setting two of his poems to music, both of which also later on inspired Mendelssohn to compose a concert overture. In contrast to the vocal works, the two violin romances are absolute music, without any literary background. Interestingly, they belong to the most gentle part of Beethoven's output: none of them contain any struggle or passion - just the serene singing of the violin. Brahms's Symphony No. 4, with its excitingly modern features, returns to the seriousness of the Baroque era with the passacaglia of the fourth movement.
Julia Pusker, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, is a pupil of György Pauk, among others, and the concert's conductor, Keri-Lynn Wilson, is the pride of Canada and a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music in New York. She is now a respected interpreter of both the concert repertoire and operatic masterpieces in Europe and North America.

Presented by: Hungarian National Philharmonic