Budapest Festival Orchestra
Iván Fischer conductor
Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov
Scheherazade, symphonic suite Op. 35 from “One Thousand and One Nights”
Brahms was already 43 when he introduced himself to the world as a symphonist. He feared he could not bear the weight of Beethoven’s legacy. This was an excess of caution, judging by the extraordinary results of his first two symphonies, and by the further masterpiece of the Third, which sums up the most diverse expressive needs in a continuum of heroism, tragedy, pathos, and nostalgia, to die away in a reconciling pianissimo. The film industry is heavily indebted to this symphony, widely adapted in works of popular culture. Similarly, Shahrazād, the most dazzling symphonic fresco of the Russian XIX century, also comes to a fantastic, lyrical and finally pacified conclusion after “visually” bringing to life the evocative and timeless East of the adventures narrated by Rimsky-Korsakov, which the great Hungarian conductor now entrusts to the talent of “his” orchestra.
