The spirit of folk music is woven throughout this programme, beginning with work by great friends and fellow countrymen, Ernő Dohnányi and Béla Bartók. Both were inspired by the music of their native Hungary, which in Dohnányi’s case produced the humourous and melodic Symphonic Minutes, and in Bartók’s, his beautifully serene Third Piano Concerto, which features a gorgeous nocturne full of birdsong. Schumann intended his Third Symphony to depict the joyous simplicity of life in the Rhine Valley and the five movements suggest folk dance and festival, the river Rhine and in the fourth movement, the majestic grandeur and solemn ceremony of Cologne Cathedral.

Programme

Dohnányi, Symphonic Minutes
Bartók, Piano Concerto No. 3
Schumann, Symphony No. 3 Rhenish

Elena Schwarz, conductor

Vadym Kholodenko, piano