HAMUPIPŐKE

It could be that even we ourselves often don’t fully comprehend how many ways the digital age has changed our relationship with music. Nevertheless, there remain themes that simply demand an analogue, more traditional approach. Active since the ’10s, singer-songwriter Gergő Szakács has transitioned over the years from monumental pop sounds to more intimate, live instrumental productions, and this journey will reach its next important milestone at Müpa Budapest.

The dice and the stopwatch will be coming out again at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall as it hosts another round of musical ‘battle’. When we talk about instrumental duels in the Hungarian capital these days, it is no longer necessarily Bach and Marchand, or even Liszt and Thalberg, that we are thinking of, because we have our own riveting concert series right here at Müpa Budapest.

Mozart was insatiably in love with life. He embraced everything considered “sinful”: wine, cards, billiards. And his passion extended to musical ornaments: flowery acciaccaturas, trills, cadences others dared not risk, and chromatic runs. But there can be no doubt the main objects of his desire were women. He dedicated several of his masterpieces to one or other of his lovers, who were thus immortalised by these concert and opera arias.