Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Wagner: Die Meistersinger (2013) [SACD / Channel Classics – CCS SA 32713]

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer - Wagner: Die Meistersinger (2013)

Title: Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Wagner: Die Meistersinger (2013)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO

Performances of the music of Richard Wagner will for many be associated with Ivбn Fischer’s elder brother Adam who has conducted complete Ring cycles at Bayreuth & in Budapest. Those, however, who follow the concert schedules of Ivбn Fischer & his phenomenally hard working Budapest Festival Orchestra will know that they have performed the Wagner programme featured on this SACD – or variations on it – to great acclaim in many of the major European cities over the past couple of years.

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1 min read

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Dvorak: Symphonies 8 & 9 (2010) [SACD / Channel Classics – CCS SA 90110]

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer - Dvorak: Symphonies 8 & 9 (2010)

Title: Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Dvorak: Symphonies 8 & 9 (2010)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

As orchestras and conductors have been demonstrating for more than a century, you don’t have to be Bohemian to play Dvorák. All you need is profound musicality, a deep love of life, and an overwhelming urge to communicate. These are all qualities that Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra demonstrate in full in this 2000 Channel Classics recording of the composer’s Eighth and Ninth symphonies. In these performances, one hears not only edge-of-the-chair excitement from the Hungarian musicians, one hears joy, happiness, and good old-fashioned fun. Listen to the rollicking horn trills in the Eighth’s Finale, the thundering timpani in the Ninth’s Scherzo; the interplay between winds, strings, and brass in the coda of the Eighth’s Scherzo; the lush string tone in the Ninth’s Largo; the headlong rush of the Eighth’s opening Allegro con brio; or the awesome power of the Ninth’s closing Allegro con fuoco. Although there are dozens of great recordings of both these works, these performances deserve to be heard by anyone who loves life, love, and joy. While the digital sound is a bit thin, it is also very clear, very clean, and very, very colorful.

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2 min read

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Beethoven: Symphonies 4 & 6 (2014) [SACD / Channel Classics – CCS SA 30710]

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer - Beethoven: Symphonies 4 & 6 (2014)

Title: Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Beethoven: Symphonies 4 & 6 (2014)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO

Two fundamentally different symphonies: both works explore feelings from an entirely different point of view. The Fourth is about human feelings and moods: obsession, love (what a melody in the second movement!), happiness, fun, wit, (Beethoven’s most humorous finale!). The Sixth is about feelings that nature awakens in us: calmness, meditation, thankfulness.It has been an especially creative process to work on these masterpieces. We discovered that the Fourth Symphony sounds better with natural horns and trumpets. In the Pastorale we used a different seating arrangement, with the winds scattered among the strings, so that each soloist was surrounded by musicians playing the flow of Beethoven’s nature music. After the storm, when we hear the first tentative horn call with a bagpipe-like accompaniment, suggesting signals across the mountains, we found it appropriate to answer with a solo violin, which is gradually joined by the whole orchestra. Iván Fischer

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1 min read