NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Anna Vinnitskaya / Joana Mallwitz

To mark the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninov’s birth, the two perform the legendary »Rach 3« (featured to great acclaim in the film »Shine«) – one of the most difficult piano concertos to play in the entire literature. Whether the composer really packed the most notes per minute into the piano part – as meticulous number crunchers claim to have discovered – or not: his »Elephant Concerto« (Artur Rubinstein) contains emotional dimensions that are hardly quantifiable. Between the simple beginning with its unforgettable melody and the passionate final climax, the work wanders through many a musical mountain and valley.

The Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, on the other hand, roamed himself through the mountains and valleys of his Eastern European homeland on various research trips. He brought back with him whole volumes of folk songs from the local population – for instance from Galánta, a town in what is now Slovakia, where Kodály had already picked up dances of the Sinti and Roma during his childhood. Many years later, as an established composer, he turned them into the rousing »Dances of Galánta« for orchestra. Incidentally, he himself had already composed a classic back in 1927, which has since been enveloped into the Hungarian folk repertoire: »Háry János« is a Münchhausen-esque tale all about the imaginary adventures of the farmer and soldier of the same name, and the music for it can be sung along by everyone in Kodály’s homeland. In this country, some audience members may still be taken aback by the cimbalom (»hammer dulcimer«) in the orchestra, which the composer used to give his catchy melodies that last touch of local colour.