Excellence without boundaries: Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra

The Budapest Festival Orchestra – which counts among the ten best orchestras according to BBC Music Magazine – and its music director Iván Fischer are an inexhaustible source of projects.

A Midnight Music evening show for night owls, “surprise” concerts where the programme is kept secret until the last moment, open rehearsals in dialogue with the musicians, Cocoa-concerts for children (of which there is a series dedicated to audiences with autism), the annual children's event Dancing on the Square: all the experience of this extraordinary ensemble is condensed in its way of making music within everyone's reach.

This is why Iván Fischer wanted, back in 1983, to gather the best Hungarian musicians in an ensemble capable of making music in a constantly renewed fashion, with the participation of all when it came to defining the musical programmes and community projects. Therefore, it is perfectly natural for these musicians to mix Hungarian folk and repertoire music, as in this captivating programme.

The music of Ern? Dohnányi, who grew up alongside Béla Bartók, looks to traditional Hungarian melodies with the same richness and orchestration virtuosity as Richard Strauss. The latter is to be found in the second part of the programme with the enthralling music of Don Juan and Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils or his tone poem Till Eulenspiegel. Between the two, Beethoven's luminous Piano Concerto No. 4 will be performed by Rudolf Buchbinder, an expert in the Beethovenian repertoire.