Béla Bartók composed his Dance Suite, which would become one of his most frequently-played compositions, in 1923. Although the themes are Bartók’s, they sound like peasant music: Hungarian, Romanian, Slovakian and Arabian, commingling in some of the movements.

As Bartók himself pointed out, “The melody of the first theme in the first movement is reminiscent of primitive Arabian folk music, whereas its rhythm sounds East European.” Thus he remained faithful to his guiding idea of confraternisation among peoples.

Tonight François-Xavier Roth and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra will perform the Dance Suite at the Lucerne Festival.

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Here is our latest newsletter, focusing on this year’s Lucerne Festival (16.08.–15.09.):

Georg Friedrich Haas’ 70 minute work for 24 instruments, in vain, is one of the most celebrated works in the composer’s catalogue.

It has been a highly praised in the New York Times (Vivienne Schweitzer wrote of “waves of opulently strange, beautiful sounds”); it was the central part of an 8-hour ‘symposium’ concert by Klangforum Wien; and has already been performed 31 times since its world première in 2000.

Now, in a kind of pan-Alpine derby, the work is being performed twice in the same evening at two different major festivals (Saturday 13 Aug).

Emilio Pomàrico conducts Klangforum Wien at the Salzburg Festival, while at the Lucerne Festival Jürg Henneberger conducts Ensemble Phoenix Basel.

Listen to an excerpt of in vain on this page.

The Lucerne concert is part of a special focus on Haas this year, as part of which his opera Nacht (night is the central theme of the festival this year) can be heard (17 Sept) as well as his string quartets, including the world première of the String Quartet No 7 by the Arditti Quartet (10 Sept), and various ensemble works.

See all forthcoming performances of works by Georg Friedrich Haas in our online calendar.