Just a few months into my role as chief conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, I am back conducting them in two concerts with rather unusual programmes. On 8 February, we will be performing Crisantemi by Puccini, the Pelléas et Mélisande suite by Fauré and the Rossini Stabat Mater. On 15 February, it will be the turn of Debussy’s Suite bergamasque in the orchestration by Gustave Cloez and André Caplet, the Rodrigo Concierto Andaluz for four solo guitars and the Prokofiev Classic Symphony. The programmes have been chosen with great care. I personally love bringing together Puccini and Fauré, just as I find it interesting to perform the Rodrigo Concierto and the Prokofiev Classica consecutively. Of course, the two programmes are linked by other subtle connections, such as references to music from the 1700s, the evocation of miniatures, certain dreamlike atmospheres that recall the sonority of the early 1900s, with hints of impressionism. In this context, the Rossini Stabat Mater stands out in splendid solitude at the heart of the programme. That this masterpiece was accused of excessive theatricality is a well-known story. The great interpretations which followed that first Italian performance in 1842 (conducted at the Archiginnasio in Bologna by my beloved Donizetti in person) have done justice to this composition, pervaded as it is from the first note to the last with a sense of religion which does great honour to the sequence by Jacopone da Todi. I’m impatient to show our audience the immense abilities of the Hungarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra, whose aspiration here is to bring together respect for Rossini’s structure and the majestic progression of the chorus that prepares the noble atmosphere of the finale, which is always so moving for performers and audience: “Amen, in sempiterna” in fugato style.