Jubilee concert of Ilona Prunyi A Zeneakadémia saját szervezésű programja

“Ilona Prunyi is one of the towering figures of Hungarian music life; her virtuosity is quite remarkable.” So said Annie Fischer about the Liszt and Bartók-Pásztory Prize winning musician who has taught at the Liszt Academy for half a century and is still giving recitals, and whose name is associated with nearly fifty recordings. She also sparked the Dohnányi renaissance in Hungary. Of course, in the case of Ilona Prunyi astonishing virtuosity is of the least importance: of far greater relevance is the humanist attitude that springs from her music making, that has defined her teaching and makes her one of the ‘last Mohicans’ of a bygone civil age. In the first half of the concert she performs Liszt and Chopin works, and then – in the company of selected chamber partners – she unveils a rarely heard masterpiece by her favourite composer, Ernő Dohnányi. The Sextet in C major for violin, viola, cello, clarinet, horn and piano dates from 1935. For the large part it employs the late 19th century idiom, but there is a jazz overtone in its closing movement: the magnificent finale is as though Gershwin had spent too much time in a Vienna hotel orchestra from the turn of the century, and the ironic Mahler had whispered a couple of ideas to him.