Beethoven in Debrecen

We had an extraordinary concert experience on March 3rd in the Kolcsey Centre in Debrecen: the Kodály Philharmonic Orchestra performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. Our friend Daniel Somogyi-Tóth conducted the orchestra and played on the piano while the other soloists were Barnabas Kelemen on the violin and Alexander Buzlov on the violincello. The Beethoven anniversary year offers many interesting concerts for music lovers. We are in March yet but we have participated in several concerts including a rehearsal of the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. The greatest experience nevertheless was the Debrecen concert for us. I heard this Beethoven piece first time and it seduced me at once. I had lamented already before how to mark the anniversary of the great composer with my own tools. I, thus started the picture just on the next day after the concert. I began with the orchestra itself. Daniel was kind enough to send me their sitting plan. I chose a separate kind of chair for each instrumental group. Both the musicians and their instruments were made of stamps while the background was made of a stamp issued in Mexico featuring Beethoven’s signature. I found them in the catalogue but I did not have any of them myself so I made photocopies to use. I found luckily a photo of the three soloists of the evening for the picture. Preparations needed much time but the real trouble was caused by gluing as everyone had a very thoroughly planned place on this picture. The final step was to record the music on a miniature player. So my second “singing picture” was ready.

I close with the words of Daniel Somogyi-Tóth conductor and organ-artist written to me: „Pictural imagery of music is an eternal challenge to which your picture offers an exciting solution!”