'An Optimistic Requiem', Festival Theatre, 17 May

Johannes Brahms Hungarian Dance No.4

Exhibit number one is the Academic Festival Overture which Brahms composed for a ceremony in which he was awarded an honorary doctorate. In it, he wittily combined a number of student drinking songs, among them Gaudeamus Igitur which everyone in Hungary knows from their end of school ceremony. The closing movement of Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 begins in highly dramatic fashion, it is very tense but then it gives way to the most wonderful happy music you can imagine.

There are many beautiful requiems and funeral pieces in the musical repertoire, the most notable examples being by Mozart and Verdi. After Brahms’s mother died, he composed his A German Requiem but broke the trend by using a German language text – compiled by the composer from biblical texts – instead of the more customary Latin and the piece gives a wonderfully moving depiction of the bodily mortality and the contradictions of an immortal soul.
 
It also poses the thought that after the final judgement, believing souls await immortal salvation. It is funeral music that has as its basic feeling a sense of hope. So it’s a truly “optimistic requiem”.

Featuring: Danube Symphony Orchestra, Hungarian National Choir
Conductor: Mátyás Antal
Johannes Brahms:
Academic Festival Overture, op. 80
Symphony No. 1, op. 68 – extracts
A German Requiem, op. 45 – extracts

Ticketprices: 1100.- 1300.- HUF

Travel Checques, Sodexho Culture Vouchers and Palace Gift Vouchers are also accepted at the Palace of Arts Ticket Office when purchasing tickets for this concert."

Source: Palace of Arts