Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Iván Fischer

Two great Hungarians – Iván Fischer and Sir András Schiff – together with the fabulous Budapest Festival Orchestra give a masterclass in musicianship.

The Hungarian conductor is a late replacement for a satisfying mixed programme in which pianist Anna Vinnitskaya makes a blistering debut. 

Iván Fischer’s take on Monteverdi’s opera offers a radical rewriting within the trappings of a traditional staging.

Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra go out on a limb for a second night at the Hollywood Bowl. 

In a program devoted to Béla Bartók, the visitors from Hungary conveyed both a distinct uniqueness of their heritage as well as a possibility of music as a tool for communication and understanding.

The Konzerthaus Berlin devotes a six-day festival to a single composer under a single conductor. 

A trip down the Danube to old Budapest, with Iván Fischer taking the music of Brahms and Liszt back to their folk roots. 

Anna Lucia Richter provides a superb finish to a highly romantic Mahler 4 from Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. 

The Iván Fischer Opera Company makes a triumphant foray into Verdi's oeuvre.

Iván Fischer's minimalist staging of Don Giovanni makes a triumphant return to Mupa, Budapest.

An evening full of verve and surprise, Iván Fischer conducts Nicola Benedetti and Budapest Festival Orchestra in a Legendary Partnership at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra gave a lesson in ethnomusicology as part of the their all-Bartók programme, which culminated in a towering performance of Bluebeard's Castle.

Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra lit up Zurich’s historic Tonhalle with a stellar double-bill of Mendelssohn and Mahler.

Crisp Bartók, eloquent Schubert and a poignant tribute to Zoltán Kocsis in the Budapest Festival Orchestra's latest concert. 

Conductor Iván Fischer and violinist Nikolaj Znaider inject new life into works rendered banal by featuring in programmes too often.

A fascinating first-half juxtaposition of Enescu and Bartók is followed by a strangely unconvincing take on Mozart's “Prague” Symphony.

A master at clever programming, Maestro Iván Fischer surrounded Dutilleux with well-known pieces by Debussy, Ravel and Satie as part of the week-long French Days segment of the Bridging Europe 2016 series at Budapest’s Müpa. 

Berlin’s Konzerthaus Orchestra began its new season with works by two composers set against the artistic orthodoxies of their day.

Although Ács Ákos gave an excellent performance of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, Iván Fischer's innovative Requiem didn't quite work.

Iván Fischer's staged concert had its flaws, but some original ideas and a strong cast gave an impressive performance.

Bach’s Magnificat featured superlative solos from both singers and musicians, but the RCO and Iván Fischer reached a higher plane in a beautifully crafted and optimistic Brahms’ First Symphony.

This was one of those rare musical experiences, where playing strikes up a dialogue with the prevailing zeitgeist to produce something momentous.

The visiting Budapest Festival Orchestra delivered traditional repertoire with some unexpected quirks.

In a gilt-edged programme, Iván Fischer and Jean-Yves Thibaudet honoured the audience of the Great Hall with a splendid initiation of the New Year.

The Budapest Festival Orchestra poured out wave upon wave of euphoric depth, melancholy and sateen-like ensemble with vigor, heart and delightful ability under the guidance of their innately musical founder and conductor.  

Elegant Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra team with seasoned soloists, Yefim Bronfman and Miah Persson, for peerless Bartók and Mahler.

Iván Fischer, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra brought a high level of intimacy with, and understanding of, the repertoire performed in the evening’s programme in São Paulo. 

A traditional programme of overture, concerto and symphony delivered classically, with a soloist on radiant form.

  Iván Fischer has distinguished himself as a conductor with inimitable listening skills; he truly has an ear for which sounds should be coming from where and how the sounds of each member of the Budapest Festival Orchestra should be arranged in space. 

Rich textures and sculpted phrases: Iván Fischer presents a unique vision of Brahms' Third and Fourth symphonies. Drama maybe lacking, but the BPO more than compensate with the beauty and elegance of their sound.

Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra gave a breath-taking performance, with  concentration and class.

Amsterdam has an outstanding history for Mahler performances, but this fine Ninth from Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra lived up to all this history.

Sometimes the remedy for an extremely fast-paced life is a mellow afternoon in a fabulous concert hall. So it was that on Sunday, the Orchestra of the Berlin Konzerthaus put on a program featuring Dvořák at his most pastoral.Led by Iván Fischer and featuring soprano Anna Lucia Richter and mezzo Olivia Vermeulen, the program was devoted entirely to Dvořák.

In his program note, conductor-director Iván Fischer describes his Mostly Mozart Festival production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro as a staged concert. His agenda sounds serious: “This is my attempt to bring theater and music closer to each other, to create a new natural harmony.” He asks for a new era in opera production, seeking “organic unity” between music and theater.

The Budapest Festival Orchestra are a relatively well-kept secret, although goodness knows why. Perhaps it is something to do with their young age (formed in 1983) or their somewhat utilitarian name.

Iván Fischer conducted the Budapest Festival Orchestra in impassioned performances of Dohnányi, Beethoven and Brahms to an appreciative, if criminally small, audience in Manchester.More than any other Music Director one could think of, Fischer has a large claim to the BFO being his orchestra. Since founding the orchestra in 1983, he has been its only chief and has guided it to wide acclaim.

In his biography of Richard Wagner, Michael Tanner writes that Tristan und Isolde is one of two great masterpieces that have the musical brilliance, the intellectual strength and the emotional power to convert you to its philosophical cause. The other, naturally, is the St Matthew Passion.

The Budapest Festival Orchestra has played in Edinburgh before to great critical acclaim. Consequently, it was only to be expected that their concert last Sunday would be well attended, despite a late change of soloist. In fact, it was a virtual sell-out and we were not disappointed.

This concert saw the Budapest Festival Orchestra reduced to a period ensemble of fewer than ten musicians plus soloists for Bach’s cantata ‘Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht’, and after the interval packed closely together as they filled the large stage of the Konzerthaus with forces well in excess of the not-insignificant minimum required for a big Bruckner symphony.

Ivan Fischer is acquiring, if he hadn’t already, a reputation as one of the great musical mavericks alive today. Shortlisted for this year’s Gramophone Artist of the Year award, he has a track record for accessibility and great musical energy.

Librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte billed Don Giovanni a “dramma giocoso,” literally a “jocular drama,” and, unsurprisingly, finding the balance between comedy and drama is the key to any good production.

Last night's concert at the Royal Festival Hall was a high profile affair. Staged to mark both the opening of the Hungarian six-month presidency of the European Union and the bicentenary of Liszt, it was attended by the President of Hungary and a raft of assorted dignitaries.

Au Concertgebouw, le dernier concert du Budapest Festival Orchestra laisse le public libre de choisir le programme... Une expérience ludique et enthousiasmante, malgré les aléas de la lecture à vue.

L'interprétation de la Symphonie n° 4 restera dans les mémoires comme un tour de force phénoménal, après un concerto mozartien moins convaincant sous les doigts d'Emanuel Ax.

Sowohl Beethovens zweites als auch drittes Klavierkonzert interpretierte der gebürtige Ungar András Schiff mit dem Budapest Festival Orchestra in der Münchner Philharmonie.

La Orquesta del Festival de Budapest con Iván Fischer al frente presentaron a Enescu, Bartok y Mahler para poner punto final a la 67 edición del Festival de Santander con espíritu celebratorio y una calidad a la altura de lo acontecido anteriormente.

Conclusion grandiose du Budapest Festival à Bruges avec une interprétation extraordinaire de la Symphonie « Résurrection » de Mahler. 

Retour sur un concert aux forts échos politiques contemporains et conçu comme une manifeste pour la paix.

Un événement rare : Christiane Karg accompagnée par Mahler lui-même grâce à un enregistrement Welte-Mignon, et une Quatrième Symphonie de Mahler de haut vol.

Vilde Frang zeigte in der Berliner Phlharmonie ihre ganze leidenschaftliche Ausdruckskraft bei der Interpretation dieses Meisterwerks.