Beethoven Festival 2026

Musical roots in the folk songs and dances of Hungary and Turkey: Jean-Guihen Queyras performs and presents a recital entitled ‘Roots’, featuring solo works inspired by his homeland. Two hundred years after Bach’s Cello Suites, Zoltán Kodály brings Hungarian rhythms to life. Together with Béla Bartók, he travelled through Eastern Europe to transpose the melodies he discovered into classical forms. Ahmed Adnan Saygun, a pioneer of modern composition in Turkey, combines Bach’s legacy with the Turkish makam system in his 1955 Partita. At the same time, one senses the influence of his student years amidst the Parisian avant-garde. Queyras also performs a solo piece by Fazıl Say, which he premiered two years ago. Say, too, celebrates the timelessness of folklore and gives his movements titles such as ‘Fearlessness’, ‘Infinite Memories’ and ‘Celebration of Peace’.