Joshua Bell & Sam Haywood Presented by Liszt Academy

“This is one of my favourite places in the world,” said Joshua Bell in bidding farewell to his Budapest audience at the sonata recital at the Liszt Academy in 2016. Naturally, after this statement, we had to welcome him back again. This time he comes to the Grand Hall to play chamber music, moreover, in the company of his piano accompanist Sam Haywood. Bell has characterized the Australian-born British pianist, his equal partner in performances, as a “marvellous musician, modest and extremely sincere.” There is no need to introduce the American violinist: his rise to stardom and status as a truly great artist happened in front of Budapest audiences. Following two 19th-century sonata classics, it is the turn of Prokofiev’s second violin-piano sonata, which dates from 1943: the composer, reckoning on the brilliance of David Oistrakh, rewrote the principal part for violin after being originally composed for flute in the previous year.