Bach / Beethoven / Brahms // Pletnev / Engegård

Returning to Concerto Budapest to take the stage together to perform a programme of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms at this concert will be two popular – indeed audience favourites – recurring guest artists: the Russian Mikhail Pletnev and Norway’s Arvid Engegård. Although the exact year when Bach composed his Prelude and Fugue in D major remains unconfirmed, there is no doubt that it was in 1929, more than two centuries later, that Ottorino Respighi crafted his amazing orchestral arrangement. Beethoven’s fifth and final completed piano concerto, written in E-flat major, is a truly grand work, and its conclusion suggests a surprisingly serene farewell to the genre. Comprising the second part of the concert, Brahms’s Second Symphony, exudes such a sense of harmony towards the listener that it truly does sound as if it were written for a happy young couple, as the composer himself once described the work.