Budapest Festival Orchestra Presented by Liszt Academy

Gábor Takács-Nagy’s energy and imagination are inexhaustible when it comes to the music of Haydn or Mozart. The élan, floating elegance and Mozartian genius on show here are complemented by a special tuba concerto in which everything can change from one second to the next. The concert starts with Symphony No. 80 by the master of the genre. We get several flashes of Haydn’s sense of humour in the piece: while the raging emotions characteristic of Sturm und Drang can easily carry one away, the work is punctuated in near shocking suddenness by sun-filled melodies. And although the tempestuous mood does not subside altogether, light humour has won the day by the end of the symphony. József Bazsinka, one of the finalists in the orchestra’s Végh Sándor Competition, plays a true curiosity as the second work in the concert. As far as the musician is concerned, the Strukov tuba concerto is a sincere tribute to the tuba master Mel Culbertson. Mozart wrote the festive Serenade in D major for the wedding of Elisabeth Haffner, daughter of the enormously wealthy mayor of Salzburg. This most elegant of works, including fine violin solos, is where, according to musicologist H. C. Robbins Landon, “technical ability and musical genius are perfectly wedded.”