Eszter Haffner, Péter Bársony & Ditta Rohmann Presented by Liszt Academy

“There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world / though they are no longer among the living.” These lines by the poet Hannah Szenes, who was murdered in the Second World War, could serve as the motto of this homage concert in the Chamber Music, So Close series, featuring two professors of the Liszt Academy Strings Department and violinist Eszter Haffner. In part of the programme we hear works dating from 1944 by two Czech composers, Hans Krása and Gideon Klein, both murdered in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Klein was deported less than two weeks after completing his String Trio, whereas Krása composed both chamber works in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Péter Eötvös’s work is a tribute to Christophe Desjardins who died in 2020; the French violist was a member of Ensemble InterContemporain, and his name is associated with the performance of numerous contemporary works. The melancholic overtone is counterbalanced by Schubert’s string trio, of which only the opening Allegro movement has survived in its entirety.