Respighi / Britten / Beethoven

Just as the rhythm of our parents and grandparents lives in our movements and in the words we speak, the music of the masters also beats with the 'rhythm of the ancestors'. It's an endless chain, you can't get out of it, but it's a beautiful experience to wonder at it. All three works can be seen as a kind of homage. In Britten's case, the title suggests a hat-tipping to his former master-teacher; Beethoven's penultimate is perhaps more Haydnian than his early ones in many of its details; and Respighi was famous for his almost manic adoration of the past.


Enrico Onofri is a world-renowned conductor and violinist who is the principal conductor and permanent conductor of several ensembles. For twenty years he was concertmaster and soloist of the pioneering ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, a recognised expert in the performance of older music. For this reason, and because of his background as a stringed instrument player, we have chosen to present a programme in which early music meets string music on the occasion of his conducting debut in Hungary. Both Respighi's archaic Dances of Antiquity and Beethoven's Eighth are a tribute to the great masters of the past, while Britten's Variations are a huge challenge for any string orchestra, being one of the most difficult and perfect works for strings in the literature. The concert - whose two outer pieces frame the more profound, more difficult to approach, but nevertheless impressive Britten work with flowing, whistle-able melodies - is not only for the most experienced music connoisseurs, but can also be a good introduction to live music for the brave beginner.