Pinchas Steinberg and Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra A Zeneakadémia saját szervezésű programja

There exist dozens of anecdotes recalling the deep-seated indifference felt by Brahms and Liszt towards each other’s music. From one side, the charge of quackery and deceit; and from the other corner, the mark of drabness. It is a fact that Liszt, who indiscriminately propagated the music of his contemporaries, never in his entire life played a Brahms piece in public, while Brahms spectacularly took a nap during a recital of one of the greatest piano works of the 19th century, Liszt’s Sonata in B. Any rapprochement between the two composers was made impossible by the fact that they became figureheads of the opposing parties in the most fraught, most bitter aesthetic debate of Romanticism. The young composer Hugo Wolf mockingly stated that there was “more intelligence and emotion in a single cymbal stroke of Liszt than in all the three symphonies of Brahms”. Of course, by switching symphonies for symphonic poems one could, on the other hand, say the same thing (naturally swapping the names around). Frequently, however, posterity does not treat these great spats with the respect they may deserve, and the handshake that never happened between these two greats of music occurs in the form of concert programmes that would have been inconceivable at one time. József Joachim, the concertmaster of Liszt’s Weimar orchestra and an unwavering devotee of Brahms, certainly would never have played the Violin Concerto dedicated to him right after a Liszt work, but it is our great fortune that Ádám Banda does not follow the example of the legendary violinist in this matter. Pinchas Steinberg, senior conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, leads the Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra.