Hommage à Láng György A Zeneakadémia saját szervezésű programja

Several generations in Hungary grew up with the music-novels of György Láng, but only a few know that he was an active composer, too, and he studied in the Liszt Academy class of Zoltán Kodály. During the Second World War, as a Jew, he was deported to Mauthausen concentration camp, but he survived the war. His principal work as a composer is the Concerto Ebraico for violin, which he wrote in his head while in the camp. In his memoirs he writes: “In 1942, on a winter’s night, the long train clanked somewhere in the lost wilds. Victims huddled in the cattle wagons to escape the deadly cold. Suddenly, in the dark wagon, a humming began: it was the Hebrew carol Él sónó habó. It resounded with increasing strength, a roaring, jubilant rhythm drowning out the clatter of the wheels, the war and the death they thundered towards...” This tune was the inspiration for the violin concerto, the performance of which David Oistrakh and Yehudi Menuhin also planned, but which in the end was only played after Láng had died. The rediscovery of the work is thanks to Béla Drahos, leader of the Alba Regia Orchestra for the past 15 years; this is its first ever performance in Budapest. There is no need to explain why the concert, attended by György Láng’s widow as guest of honour, closes with Beethoven’s Ninth symphony, a composition about triumph over adversity.