JUDIT RAJK & BERLIN PHILHARMONIC CHAMBER SOLOISTS Presented by Liszt Academy

The piano quartet fragment written by Gustav Mahler in his youth as a conservatory student came to light many decades after the death of the composer and became an integral part of the concert repertoire virtually overnight. Only the opening movement of the piece, which Mahler had planned to have several movements, was ever completed: Mahler sketched out just 24 bars of the continuation. More than a century later, this fragment attracted the interest of Alfred Schnittke. Since there was no opportunity to supplement or reconstruct the piece, Schnittke set about creating a new composition around the tentative shoots of the Mahler movement. He himself formulated the fascinating paradox of the undertaking thus: “I tried to remember something that had never been created.” György Kurtág’s song cycle S. K. Remembrance Noise, written for vocals and violin, examines in an ironic and philosophical way the traps inherent in remembering. Judit Rajk and chamber soloists from the Berlin Philharmonic reveal the astonishingly rich fabric of works, composers, ages and genres.