Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Iván Fischer

Budapest Festival Orchestra / Iván Fischer

A spotlight on the most gypsy-spirited of German composers, with the magnificent orchestra founded by Hungarian conductor Iván Fischer in 1983, performing with their fellow countryman and Brahms aficionado, pianist András Schiff.

Iván Fischer

A Beethoven festival with Iván Fischer! This Hungarian conductor has acquired international fame for his readings of the classical-romantic repertoire and makes guest appearances with all the great orchestras. His BRSO programme features the Eighth Symphony, full of merriment and understated humour, and the Fifth, where Fate knocks at the door and the almost martial finale seems to find the composer “grabbing destiny by the throat”. Between these two mutually contradictory masterpieces is the revenge aria Ah! Perfido!, to words by Pietro Metastasio. The soprano is Christiane Karg.

Iván Fischer

A Beethoven festival with Iván Fischer! This Hungarian conductor has acquired international fame for his readings of the classical-romantic repertoire and makes guest appearances with all the great orchestras. His BRSO programme features the Eighth Symphony, full of merriment and understated humour, and the Fifth, where Fate knocks at the door and the almost martial finale seems to find the composer “grabbing destiny by the throat”. Between these two mutually contradictory masterpieces is the revenge aria Ah! Perfido!, to words by Pietro Metastasio. The soprano is Christiane Karg.

Iván Fischer

They were born in the same year (1860), enrolled at Vienna Conservatory at the same time and temporarily lived in the same flat: Gustav Mahler and Hugo Wolf. Then their paths led them in completely different directions: Mahler advanced to become the most successful conductor and greatest symphonist of his era, while Wolf, having failed in other genres, devoted his creative energy to the art song, in which field he left behind a uniquely vibrant oeuvre. As was common in his day, Wolf orchestrated several of his own lieder. Our programme reunites these two disparate contemporaries and shows what they composed at the same time: Mahler’s First and Wolf’s settings of Goethe and Mörike were all written around the year 1888.

Iván Fischer

They were born in the same year (1860), enrolled at Vienna Conservatory at the same time and temporarily lived in the same flat: Gustav Mahler and Hugo Wolf. Then their paths led them in completely different directions: Mahler advanced to become the most successful conductor and greatest symphonist of his era, while Wolf, having failed in other genres, devoted his creative energy to the art song, in which field he left behind a uniquely vibrant oeuvre. As was common in his day, Wolf orchestrated several of his own lieder. Our programme reunites these two disparate contemporaries and shows what they composed at the same time: Mahler’s First and Wolf’s settings of Goethe and Mörike were all written around the year 1888.

Iván Fischer

Iván Fischer

Iván Fischer

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Klaus Mäkelä

There are few orchestras that can boast as long a Mahler tradition as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam. Even during Gustav Mahler’s lifetime, the orchestra regularly performed his symphonies and helped the composer achieve the fame he enjoys to this day. Klaus Mäkelä, who takes over as the orchestra’s chief conductor in 2027, continues this tradition with a performance of Mahler’s First Symphony. The composer wrote about his work: »It has become so overpowering – it flowed out of me like a mountain stream!« Also on the programme is Arnold Schönberg’s early work »Verklärte Nacht« for string orchestra, based on Richard Dehmel’s poem of the same name. Before Schönberg climbed to the top of the avant-garde and shocked the music world with his twelve-tone music, he wrote deeply Romantic pieces in his younger years, in which he endeavoured to unite the styles of Wagner and Brahms.

Concertgebouw Orchestra: A Prokofiev feast with Iván Fischer

Sergey Prokofiev’s tremendous versatility can be appreciated only when multiple works of his are heard side by side. This concert by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the direction of honorary guest conductor Iván Fischer is the perfect opportunity.The Overture on Hebrew Themes is friendly, playful and folkloric. By contrast, the Second Piano Concerto features all the shock effects that made Prokofiev famous. The music is like that of a wicked fairy tale, but can also be heard as the missing link between Rachmaninoff and the brutal ‘machine music’ of the 1920s. The work is rarely performed live owing to the extremely difficult piano part. Nelson Goerner is one of few to venture such a performance. Hearing the Argentine pianist in concert is invariably an unforgettable experience.With the ballet Cinderella (based on Perrault’s ‘Cendrillon’), Prokofiev proved himself a worthy successor to Tchaikovsky – and was even heralded as ‘the new waltz king’ by a Russian critic at the time. Performed less frequently than Prokofiev’s earlier ballet Romeo and Juliet, it nevertheless features the same compelling blend of elegance, whimsy and magical orchestral colour. Prokofiev himself claimed it contains some of the best passages he ever composed.