Hungarian Conservative

Péter Eötvös, one of the most renowned composers of Hungary and also a music teacher and conductor, passed away last Sunday, on 24 March at the age of 80. During his career, he conducted Europe‘s leading orchestras, including the Berlin, Munich, London, Los Angeles, and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras as well as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

The conductor of the concert will be Thomas Sanderling, who has collaborated with masters such as Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein, while the soloist of the Violin Concerto will be world-famous German violinist Kirill Troussov.

‘There is something in our national anthem that makes it mean something important and inexplicable to every Hungarian. The hallmark of great pieces of art is that the reader or listener feels as if they express something very important that they cannot. As if they speak from their heart, expressing their innermost, most sincere desires and dreams. It is this mysterious quality that Hungarians feel when listening to the National Anthem: that it really comes from our hearts, it is our prayer, the prayer of every single Hungarian to the Creator.’

The director of the Hungarian State Opera House, Szilveszter Ókovács, published a scathing response to the depiction by the Regensburg Theatre of a soon-to-premiere Péter Eötvös opera as a ‘bitter parable of the Orbán regime’.