2. Chamber Music Concert

Joseph Haydn Piano trio No. 39 in G major, Hob. XV:25 “in Hungarian style"
Zoltán Kodály String quartet No 2. Op. 10
Johannes Brahms Piano quartet No. 1 in G minor Op. 25

Joseph Haydn shows his entertaining side in the best sense of the word in his famous Trio in G major, which he composed in London in 1795. Haydn had been Kapellmeister at the court of the Esterházy family for almost thirty years. There he also became acquainted with original Hungarian dance music, which he presented to the delighted London audience in the last movement of the trio, the Rondo all’Ongarese. Zoltán Kodály had a completely different view of Hungarian folk music. He did not look for the temperamental element in it, but rather - like his colleague Béla Bartók - discovered a “Hungarian style“ on his research trips, “free of any sentimentality” and “superfluous ornamentation”. This is exactly what Kodály adopted in his second string quartet, which he composed between 1916 and 1918: a work of great seriousness and almost archaic power. In his Piano Quartet No. 1, on the other hand, Johannes Brahms indulges in Hungarian folklore, which the Hamburg-born composer also revived in his Hungarian Dances. In the final Rondo alla Zingarese of his quartet, Brahms sets sparks flying.