“I wrote the piano concerto on the occasion of Georges Cziffra’s 100^th birthday. My family had personal connections to him and I had the opportunity to get to know him when I was still a child. Cziffra’s whole life was one of success and tragedy. It was rhapsodic and dramatic. This is precisely the atmosphere I have tried to create in my piano concerto. The characteristic, metallic rhythm heard in the first movement is reminiscent of the work in the quarry during his imprisonment. The later, meditative state of the moments of his withdrawal from the public has been composed in three quiet cadenzas. Each movement ends with a short violin solo, a personal tribute.” 

Peter Eötvös