About soloist Márta Ábrahám

In case of rain the concert will be held on 28th July, Sunday

Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major is a pre-eminent example of classical violin music: the perfect sound, the perfectly proportioned masterpiece. The structure is traditional: the first movement is written in sonata form, the second is a series of variations on a choral theme, while the third is the exuberant Rondo. The violin solo, which demands outstanding musical and technical preparation, will be performed by Márta Ábrahám. While Beethoven committed the Violin Concerto to paper in a short amount of time in the last months of 1806, he faced a long struggle with Symphony No. 5, which he began in 1804 before completing the final version in 1807 and 1808. “Thus Fate knocks at the door!” – According to his first biographer, Anton Schindler, this was how the maestro described the opening theme of the first movement. The Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltán Kocsis, on the other hand, heard fate’s knocking in the theme of the third movement. These two movements contain the music of a genuine struggle with fate, while the second and fourth movements are triumphant in tone. From among the many musical highlights of this, the most structured and epoch-defining of Beethoven’s symphonies, we can highlight the sudden, heaven-soaring climax during the transition from the third movement to the fourth and the joyous, victorious coda.