Exactly two years after being appointed Chief Conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, I want to reflect on the short but intense journey  I have undertaken with this orchestra, and on the artistic, social and personal bonds that we have begun creating together. Everything started with Mahler (the announcement of my appointment coincided with the performance of the Resurrection Symphony at the Müpa that had such a resounding impact) and has reached an important destination today with the performance of the Symphony of a Thousand which we’re giving in the same auditorium on 23rd March, and for which our orchestra will be joined by the cream of the men’s, women’s and children’s choirs, and a magnificent selection of solo singers. We will all be called on for an exceptional venture, offering the Hungarian audience Mahler’s most magnificent creation (as he himself wrote to Willem Mengelberg, the eminent Dutch promoter of his music), a milestone in the philosophy of music, which the composer created from a vertiginous range of resources that explode with unprecedented musical power. Our formidable task is to interpret this masterpiece to express Mahler’s profound thoughts, written in a letter to another friend, that his previous works were tragic and subjective, whereas the Eighth Symphony ‘is a source of great joy’. With full awareness of the profound significance of these statements, we are about to immerse ourselves in the interpretation of a score which summarises the history of music up until 1906, year in which the symphony was composed.

I’m about to spend a whole month immersed in rehearsals and orchestral concerts which will take me to prestigious auditoriums and three countries which I love immensely: Austria, the Basque Country and Hungary. It’s like a dream for me, first of all for the programmes, which are the outcome of my suggestions, those of the host institutions, and the keenness of two such exceptional soloists as violinist Sergei Dogadin and pianist Federico Colli.

During the short tournée in Austria, I’ll be conducting the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich in the overture from the opera Ruslan and Ljudmila by Glinka, the Shostakovich Concerto no. 1 for violin and orchestra and the Martucci Symphony no. 1, first in the golden splendour of the Musikverein in Vienna (2/3 March), then in the Festspielhaus, St. Pölten (4 March), at both of which the orchestra has its residencies.

From 8 to 13 March, I’ll be conducting an orchestra which I know very well: the Euskadiko Orchestra, in five concerts which will take place in Donostia-San Sebastián, Bilbao, Pamplona-Iruña and Vitoria-Gasteiz. In the programme are two crowning glories of the symphonic repertoire, the Rachmaninov Concerto no. 2 for piano and orchestra and the symphonic poem Aus Italien by Strauss. In both of these, the virtuoso qualities of orchestra and pianist are never an end to themselves, but are essential in building the orchestral structure within which the two great composers integrated a stream of breathtaking musical ideas.

Lastly, on 23 March, I’m taking on the Mahler Symphony of a Thousand with ‘my’ Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the best of the male, female and children’s choirs, alongside excellent solo singers. We will be called on to carry out an extraordinary enterprise because, as Mahler himself wrote, we will have to try ‘…to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving’.
But it’s too soon yet to start taking about this milestone of philosophical thought on music. I’ll write more about it later when we’re rehearsing for the concert.