Concerto Budapest – Premiere III. Presented by Liszt Academy

“Certainly the first word to come to my mind when I think of him is: master.” That was the opening sentence of an article by Zoltán Kocsis honouring Zoltán Jeney on his 70th birthday in 2013. In the five years since then, his relevance as a master of brilliant compositions has grown even further. This concert of his works presents both the Zoltán Jeney of today and the early 1970's, as his composition paying homage to the middle movement (Farben) of Schönberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, titled Alef, was first heard by the audience, and the somewhat confused and even angry critics of the time, in 1972. The great György Kroó, however, provided a nuanced characterisation of the composition even then: “the piece does not bring up the questions of ‘where from’ and ‘where to’; instead it ventures to lead an aquatic lifestyle, with its seemingly constant surface and inner vibration.” Officially ostracised (and even penalized) at the time due to its “oriental notes”, Alef since has taken its rightful place among the longest-lasting Hungarian compositions of the past few decades, and now it is put on stage with new orchestration. The other work to be performed is also a new version of an earlier composition: an orchestra piece composed for László Vidovszky’s 60th birthday, titled Chinese Temple. The orchestra is conducted by Zoltán Rácz, who is an expert at performing contemporary music.