Balázs Demény Presented by Liszt Academy

“Of the French classics, Couperin most closely matches my temperament”, said Ravel in 1924. His piano work Le tombeau du Couperin, a tribute to French Baroque music, was composed between 1914 and 1917, and its orchestral version was created in 1919. The composition made its way to Hungary surprisingly quickly, first heard in 1922 as part of the Royal Swedish Ballet’s guest performance, and the original piano version was performed exactly 100 years ago, in 1925. The Cluj Napoca-born Balázs Demény, who completed his musical studies at the Bartók Béla Conservatoire and the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, and now lives in Berlin, will present the world premiere of Máté Balogh’s composition in the second half of his program. The piece is titled after one of the world’s most surreal structures, the Berlin Wall. The concert will conclude with one of Brahms’ most exquisite piano works, Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. This piece was one of the defining concert works of Ernő Dohnányi’s repertoire and was regularly performed at his concerts from the 1910s onward.