WAR AND PEACE

House music with musicologist Zoltán Farkas

Szigeti Quartet
Izabella Simon - piano

Shostakovich: III. (F major) String Quartet, Op. 73/3
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Dvořák: Piano Quintet No. 2 (in A major), op. 81

War and Peace: Shostakovich composed his third string quartet in 1946, a year after the victory of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, but peace was not born either in the work or in the soul of the composer. After getting in trouble with Soviet censorship for his Symphony No. 9, Shostakovich gave programmatic titles to each movement, lest he be accused of formalism or elitism. The titles refer to a war program:

I. Blithe Ignorance of the Future Cataclysm
II. Rumblings of Unrest and Anticipation
III. Forces of War Unleashed
IV: In Memory of the Dead
V. The Eternal Question: Why?

Dvořák is a child of a happier age. All he had to do was fight his own creative conscience. The composer was so dissatisfied with his early piano score (op. 5) that he tore up the score. 15 years later, he regretted doing so and obtained the score from his circle of friends. At first, he just wanted to fix his mistakes, but he ended up composing a whole new quintet. The magnificent work is the voice of peace and happiness. In movements 2 and 3, Dvořák's favorite Czech folk dances the Dumka and the Furian appear, however, the master does not use the original folk tunes, but his own melodies.

Zoltán Farkas

Tickets: 1600 Ft, Student tickets: 800 Ft

Sponsor: National Cultural Fund