Audiences in Birmingham and Coventry will have the chance to experience one of Hungary’s leading classical ensembles when Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra perform in both cities in December.

The concerts, under the baton of chief conductor and artistic director András Keller (pictured), also feature English pianist Paul Lewis as a guest performer.

The tour, with programmes including Beethoven’s mighty Fifth Symphony and Piano Concerto No 3, Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini and Liszt’s Les Preludes, comes to Warwick Arts Centre on December 2 and Birmingham Symphony Hall on December 3.

Formed in 1907, originally as the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, the company took its current name a century later in 2007, when Budapest-born András was appointed Artistic Director and Chief Conductor. 

The 80-strong orchestra has built up a strong national and international reputation. Making its debut visit to the UK in 2022 followed by another successful tour a year later, András is now looking forward to sharing the repertoire with returning and new audiences.

“It gives me great pleasure to return to the UK with Concerto Budapest for the third time since making our debut in 2022, and to renew our acquaintance with the fantastic British audience,” he says.

“Discerning, knowledgeable and sensitively attuned to what they’re hearing, the British public is particularly important to me, and I am proud to be able to boast many connections to this wonderful country.

“I made my debut there at the Bath Festival with Bartók’s Sonata for solo violin over 40 years ago and have returned many times since to perform as a soloist or with the Keller Quartet at every major UK concert hall and festival.”

The tour repertoire aims to take audiences through a range of emotions, András says.

“In today's increasingly virtual world we all have a great need for communicating genuine feelings,” he explains. “This is why we have selected works for our latest tour of the UK and Ireland that explore the enormous struggles we might face in our paths to attaining redemption or fulfilment.

“In this sense, Liszt’s Les Preludes, Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 and immortal Fifth Symphony are all connected to each other.

“Shostakovich’s brilliant Ninth Symphony, depicting heroic struggles against fate, can be related to the above masterpieces on another level. This remarkable work, completed at the end of the Second World War, is actually a kind of ‘anti’-ninth symphony. It reminds people today that art can never be placed in the service of any ideological or political goal, because it transcends them all.”

Much of the programme also portrays humanity’s constant striving with the vicissitudes of life, death and destiny.

“The drama of Francesca da Rimini begins amidst the terrifying tempest of hellfire, from where emerges what is perhaps the most beautiful and tortured love-song the world has ever known,” says András

“Then Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto opens up new horizons for us as we enter his vast realm of heroic struggle.

“From there we venture boldly forth into Les Preludes and, as Liszt puts it, ‘What else is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?’”

And then comes Destiny in what is one of the most well-known classical works of the Western world.

“We culminate with Beethoven’s immortal Fifth, his ‘Fate’ symphony. Fate never ceases to knock ruthlessly at our doors but Beethoven tells us to fight, to resist it with all our strength. Only through this battle does our life gain meaning, only in this way can we emerge victorious. Beethoven’s idealistic and infinite love for all humanity illuminates our path from the depths of hell to the heavens.”

Paul Lewis makes his Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra debut by performing Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. For him, the Third is Beethoven’s first truly symphonic concerto.

“Some of the later Mozart concertos are symphonic in their way, but this, I think, pushes it to another level of dramatic tension. So the orchestra certainly establishes itself as a major character on stage, and I think it's the soloist’s job, when the piano eventually enters, to step up to that.

“Interestingly, it's the first concerto I can think of where the cadenza is the climax of the first movement, the high dramatic point. And it's there, in the cadenza, that the piano really asserts itself over the orchestra, where it has that space to speak with a big voice. I look forward to working with András and Concerto Budapest and discovering their vision of the piece.”

András adds the concerts in the Midlands offer audiences a rare opportunity to hear these expert musicians perform these powerful works.

“The musicians of Concerto Budapest are not only outstanding in their technical mastery - they truly represent some of the finest artists in Hungary - but they are also exceptional chamber musicians.

“This combination is what gives the orchestra its distinctive sound. They have the rare ability to shape their individual intentions and ideas in constant awareness of one another, always in service of the greater whole.

“The orchestra lives by the principle ‘One for all, all for one’ and places the highest good, music itself and the composer’s vision, at the centre of its work, with a genuine and noble sense of humbleness. This is what creates their unmistakable sound and why the orchestra so often evokes powerful, elemental emotions in its audiences.”

Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra perform Liszt’s Les Preludes, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3, Shostakovich’s Symphony No 9 and Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini at Coventry's Warwick Arts Centre on Tuesday 2 December.

The orchestra perform Shostakovich’s Symphony No 9, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3, Liszt’s Les Preludes and Beethoven’s Symphony No 5 at Birminghan's Symphony Hall on Wednesday 3 December