Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488
Puccini: Messa di Gloria

Conductor: Cristian Mandeal, Zsolt Hamar

Featuring:

Dezső Ránki – piano
Szabolcs Brickner – tenor
Benjamin Russell – baritone
Hungarian National Choir (choirmaster: Csaba Somos)
Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra

The performance will be broadcasted on Müpa Budapest’s website and YouTube channel.

We are unlikely to find a more sensitive and well versed performer of this piano concerto and its movement of otherworldly beauty than Dezső Ránki. Mozart composed it in 1786, two months before the premiere of his opera, Le nozze di Figaro. Puccini’s mass was the diploma composition of a 25-year-old composer that took on its final form in a later revision and only saw the light of day decades after the maestro’s death. Since then, however, it has become one of the world’s most popular masses, not least of all thanks to its ‘listener-friendly” scope. The baritone soloist for this work, Benjamin Russell, studied at the Zürich Opera studio after earning his degree in Dublin. He is known to audiences as a member of the Wiesbaden Staatstheater. Szabolcs Brickner may not even have to be introduced to the Hungarian audience, as after graduating as a clarinetist and singer, he won at prestigious competitions (second prize of the Ferruccio Tagliavini International Singing Competition and first prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition) and became a frequent guest of Müpa Budapest’s productions in addition to his success abroad.

This recording was made at concerts held at Müpa Budapest on 6 December 2016 (Mozart) and 17 February 2018 (Puccini).