Surely this sounds familiar to you: why sudden breakthroughs happen, when a well- trodden path ends, those things are hard to predict. Not to mention the difficulties of nailing down what is one’s own »thing«. Life seems to enjoy taking detours.
After a good three decades and several remodellings, Franz Liszt’s breath-taking Piano Concerto was finally completed after all. A politically questionable offer from a nationalistic regime made Béla Bartók dance – in a multicultural direction, of all things. And occasionally, one door must close before another can open. For Joseph Haydn, it wasn’t a question of age: even in one’s mid-sixties, one can strike out for new horizons.
Text: Gürzenich Orchester Köln