The Budapest Festival Orchestra
Who can present the fiery rhythms and intonations of Hungarian music more purposefully and excitingly than Hungarians themselves? The 2nd Piano Concerto by the well-known romanticist Franz Liszt, which is well known in the less virtuoso, but more emotionally rich and technologically innovative world, will be performed in Rīga by the pianist Dénes Várjon. He is a professor at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and the winner of the Franz Liszt and Sándor Veress prizes.
Liszt himself was a virtuoso piano player, and on the score of this concerto he wrote that it was a symphonic concert, pointing to the equal role of the soloist and the orchestra in the major opus. Várjon’s partner will be the Budapest Festival Orchestra, which has toured all around the United States and Europe and is known as one of the world’s top 10 symphony orchestras. One of the keys to success for the orchestra is the unusually refined partnership between conductor Ivan Fischer and the musicians. They have worked together for more than 30 years. Musical jewels from various eras, nations and traditions make up the artistic face of the orchestra, which also engages in many untraditional projects. The Budapest Festival Orchestra has been nominated for a Grammy Award and won an award from the Gramophone magazine.
Ivan Fischer conducts not just the Budapest orchestra, which he founded, but also the symphony orchestra at the Berlin Konzerthaus. He also has directed operas and is one of those conductors who also compose music.
Along with Hungarian music, Fischer and his orchestra will also perform the 8th Symphony by Antonin Dvořák, who launched National Romanticism in Czech music. The symphony is full of folk motifs and brilliant trumpet sounds. When rehearsing the symphony, the conductor Rafael Kubelik declared that in Bohemia, trumpets always call people not to the battle, but instead to the dance. Of course, exciting dances are not in short supply in Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Card Game, which the outstanding George Balanchine once staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Programme
Franz Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto, Antonín Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, Igor Stravinsky’s Jeu de Cartes
Participants
Dénés Várjon, piano
Iván Fischer, conductor
