EIF: Budapest Festival Orchestra: A Model for the Future and Inside Dvořák
Usher Hall - 08/08/23
All Hail, Nicola Benedetti, Programming Genius!
As you know, there have been murmurings about this year’s Festival- little early music, little opera, flexible pricing modes, different genres and beanbags in the Usher Hall.
Well, at least for now, and for me, all that is forgotten, after one of the most enjoyable nights in the Usher Hall for years. I’ll be honest, I thought the idea of taking stalls seats out and installing loads of colourful beanbags in their place sounded like a horrendous gimmick, and the idea of two one hour long concerts, at 8 and 10 on the same evening, filled me with horror. Well, it was magical!
The magician was, of course, the founder of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Hungarian conductor, Iván Fischer, a man for whom the word charismatic was invented. Nicola Benedetti has invited Mr Fischer and his orchestra for a mini-residency at this year’s Festival, and tonight was a sort of appetiser for what is to come. The BFO has become famous for its radical approach to performing since the early 1990s, playing in non- conventional venues and operating a sort of democratic system within itself, with players choosing programmes, and off-shoot groups playing non-classical music but with the same professional rigour. All this derives from the extraordinary Mr Fischer, who had a vision, and has stuck with it. He also happens to be an outstanding conductor, with a gift for communicating both with the orchestra and the audience.
The first concert had the front of the stalls full of beanbags filled with people, with Nicola and Iván on stage in dialogue. It soon became clear that all Nicola had to do was ask a question, and Iván would entertain, amuse and educate us at length. He explained the ethos of the orchestra and how change must come. For two hundred years, an orchestra has consisted of anything up to a hundred players, dressed in Edwardian clothes, playing the same music over and over again (admittedly quite a vast store of music) to an ageing audience, something I have been writing about in the EMR for the last three years. He, through sheer force of personality, has been trying to open up other possibilities. He has presented concerts in weird venues, concerts with no clear programme, concerts for one forint where he engages with the audience and tells them about the music, and outdoor concerts in Budapest to thousands of people.
Tonight, he introduced subsections of the orchestra, who all played music outside the normal repertoire. First we heard ‘Scherzi Musicali’ by Claudio Monteverdi, with recorders, guitar and an old form of cello, alongside modern strings, and on the other side of the stage, members of the orchestra in a choir. Then we had a Tango section, Argentinian dance music which partially originated in Central Europe when Bandoneon players from Germany emigrated to Argentina and Uruguay. The Bandoneon is a sort of concertina, whose music, which when united with Spanish and African culture, eventually morphed into the sultry and sexy Argentinian Tango. The Budapest players, a string quintet, played with some vigour. Next Mr Fischer introduced us to a music dear to his heart, Klezmer, the ceremonial and dance music of the Ashkenazi Jews of central Europe. Born into a Jewish family after the war, in an area where most of the Jews had been wiped out in the Holocaust, Iván Fischer has been a strong supporter of this tradition. He spoke about taking his orchestra to old abandoned synagogues in Hungary, and slowly reminding people what had been lost. A string band accompanied the principal clarinettist of the orchestra in a few Klezmer tunes, and his playing was beyond fabulous. Finally, to close the first part of the evening, three orchestra members entertained us with a series of Transylvanian dances - a second fiddle and a double bass provided the rhythm and solid grounding, while a solo violin played astonishing tunes above them, with wonderful virtuosity. I was amused to see one of the world’s greatest virtuoso violinists, Nicola Benedetti, mesmerised by his playing.
This was the warm-up act for the main show, which started at 10pm. By this time, the whole of the stalls had been transformed into, well, an orchestra, mixed up with hundreds of audience members on beanbags. Those of us who, if sunk in a beanbag, would still be there now, were able to watch from the grand circle. I have to admit to feeling a little jealous, but also slightly relieved. I have spent a lot of my life in close proximity to symphony orchestras, and it’s not quiet, but you could see how much the audience loved getting close up with the players, and I imagine it was revelation for many!
Basically, Ivan Fischer stood on a podium in the middle of the stalls and conducted and talked us through Dvorak’s marvellous 8th Symphony, first performed in 1890. This symphony, which many consider even better than the New World, is perfect for this treatment, as it is relatively short (about 40 minutes), packed with melodies and full of variation. It also helps that Iván Fischer is one of the best conductors in the world and that his orchestra is world renowned.
I was slightly concerned at the beginning that he would stop and start too much, but he settled into a perfect balance of exposition and education. It was wonderful to hear someone so intelligent and charismatic explaining the workings of the orchestra and the nuts and bolts of the symphony. The members of each section were relatively close to each other, so the players could listen to each other, and actually, from above, one could see the layout of the orchestra perfectly. As often happens, the timpanist was large and extrovert, and Mr Fischer gave him full rein at the appropriate times, and he made the trumpets, who start the final movement with a fanfare, play as far apart as possible and yet play perfectly together! He was charming and funny and brilliant. When it came to a recapitulation of one of the movements, he stopped, saying we had heard it all before, and we didn’t need to hear it again! He got the strings to play really quietly, or for a theme to be played at different speeds to decide which was best, or for a theme to be played more or less passionately. The orchestra responded with humour and at lightning speed. They are obviously used to this style of playing, and I imagine if you buy into the whole concept (which you must do to play in the BFO), it must be terrific fun.
The orchestra play two more concerts in Edinburgh on 9th and 10th August (Bartok/Kodaly and Weber/Mendelssohn) and then move on to the BBC Proms. Don’t miss them!
Cover photo: Jess Shurte
