Budapesti Mahler Ünnep 2007 [antikvár]

7 m Budapest Mahlerfest, 2007 Introduction Dear audience, this year we are staging the third Budapest Mahlerfest. For this occa-sion we have programmed the Fourth Symphony, which can be re-garded as exceptional in a number of ways. A light, humorous chamber symphony, it is like a little interlude in the procession of Mahler's mon-umental works, yet it is immensely significant: it is this very symphony which has over the years been the gateway into the world of Mahler for the majority of his devotees. The playful, colourful first movement, the grotesquely awe-inspiring second and the beautiful, affectionate third are rounded off with the paradisiacal children's song of the fourth movement, which sends the listener out of the concert hall in a mood of benign contentment. To many people, Vier letzte Lieder ('Four Last Songs') are the only songs they can link to the name of Mahler's fellow composer and friend, Richárd Strauss. His earlier songs, however, were no less beautiful, and it was no easy task to cherry-pick from them. I hope that we will succeed in garnering a musical experience of revelatory quality. This year in Thomas Hampson we have as our guest a singer who is closely associated with Mahler, and who has perhaps done more than anyone to convey to audiences an exceptional enthusiasm for the work of that great composer. I was only too happy to accept his suggestion to alsó include pieces by Liszt in his programme. We continue to adhere to the principle that the Mahlerfest presents an opportunity to commission and present new works. For this year's festival we asked János Vajda to compose a small-scale opera. As the basis for his 'opera-novella' he chose one of Karel Capek's series of 'Apocryphal Tales', in which the story ofjesus and Barabbas is told in the words of a baker. We committed ourselves to a huge undertaking when we decided to present, with Hungárián singers, Der Kaiser von Atlantis ('The Em-peror of Atlantis') by Viktor Ullmann and Petr Kien. This masterpiece, conceived and written in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, is a wonderful, courageous riposte to war, tyranny and Nazism. Although later the authors of the work were both killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, the manuscript of the work survived. It came to light in