The concert with the outstanding celloist Jean-Guihen Queyras could be described with the verses of the excellent 19/20. century Hungarian poet Ady András Endre. The scope of Zoltán Kodály’s pastoral life is so bright in colors, the constructive poetry of Béla Bartók, akin to Bach's musical Olympus, is so soulfully true. Jean-Guihen Queyras mixed these colors on the stage of the Riga Great Guild Hall and made them shine in a thousand shades. Thank you, Jean-Guihen, for the unforgettable rendezvous! That's what we exclaim in joy, that's what the our listeners express in their genuine ovations.

 

Ancient Dawn-lands dreamed him such

As I am.

Heroic, cloudy, proud, inordinate,

Cruel, but one who’ll bleed to death

For no more than a thought.

Ancient Dawn-lands dreamed him such,

He the courageous, the new, the wild,

Noble, forever the great child,

Heartbreaking, disconsolate,

The thirsty, sun-souled errant knight,

Hurt masterpiece of some poor luckless god,

Wounded and incomplete,

Hungarian, son of the Sun.

(And to the sleepy one, the dirty one,

The crippled one, the fancy one,

The one who’s half-alive, the foaming one,

The super-Magyar one, fog-eating one,

The Swabian turned Hungarian,

I am not a Hungarian?)

 

/Ady András Endre/