R8 / Kopatchinskaja plays Ligeti ⬩ Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

In 2023, we will be remembering the centenary of the birth of György Ligeti, one of the most important composers of the second half of the 20th century. In a remarkable way, the Transylvanian-born composer was able to capture the influence of folk music and the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century in his work. He was at the birth of timbre music, working with sound colour as an independent building block, and in his peak creations he uniquely combined everything in the most expressive works of the past century. On this occasion, the chief conductor of the Radio Symphony Petr Popelka has prepared an extraordinary programme, a cross-section of Ligeti's bountiful oeuvre. The evening will open with the Concert Românesc, which is a piece strongly influenced by folklore. It will continue with the Violin Concerto, a mature work from the early 1990s, in which the solo part will be played by the most authoritative performer, the Moldovan-born violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Artist-in-Residence of the Berlin Philharmonic for the 2021/2022 season. The second half of the evening will open with Lontano, Ligeti's daring work from the 1960s, which entered the public's consciousness thanks to Stanley Kubrick's film Shining. The evening's dramaturgy will be rounded off with a suite from Béla Bartók's ballet The Marvellous Mandarin, a classic of Hungarian music that was a strong influence on Ligeti.