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Budapest Festival Orchestra
The orchestra was formed … with musicians “drawn from the cream of Hungary’s younger players,” as The Times of London put it.
The Budapest Festival Orchestra was formed in 1983 by Iván Fischer and Zoltán Kocsis, with musicians “drawn from the cream of Hungary’s younger players,” as The Times of London put it. Their aim, through intensive rehearsals and demanding the highest standards from musicians, was to make the orchestra’s initial three or four concerts per year significant events in Hungary’s musical life, and to give Budapest a new symphony orchestra of international standing.
Between 1992 and 2000, the orchestra extended their work to a full season, and the ensemble operated under the aegis of the Budapest Municipality and the new BFO Foundation, formed by fifteen Hungarian and multinational corporations and banks. Since the 2000/2001 season onwards the orchestra has been operated by the BFO Foundation, which the Budapest City Council regularly supports under a contract renewable every five years. In 2003, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage declared the orchestra a national institution supported by the state.
The Festival Orchestra is not only a vital part of Budapest’s musical life (usually performing to capacity audiences), but also a frequent and much appreciated guest at the world’s most important centres of musical excellence: Salzburg (Summer Festival), Vienna (Musikverein, Konzerthaus), Lucerne (Festival), Montreux, Zürich (Tonhalle), New York (Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall), Chicago, Los Angeles (Hollywood Bowl), San Francisco, Montreal, Tokyo (Suntory Hall), Hong-Kong, Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées), Berlin, Munich , Frankfurt (Alte Oper), London (BBC Proms Festival, Barbican Centre, Royal Festival Hall), Florence (Maggio Musicale), Rome (Accademia di Santa Cecilia), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Madrid, Athens, Copenhagen, Prague (Prague Spring Festival), Brussels (Flamish Festival) and Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), among others.
After having recorded on Hungaroton, Quintana, Teldec, Decca, Ponty, and Berlin Classics, the orchestra signed an exclusive recording contract with Philips Classics in 1996. Its recording of Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin received the Gramophone Award, while Diapason and Le Monde de la Musique chose it as their recording of the year. Recordings of Liszt’s Faust Symphony and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra were chosen among the year’s five best orchestral discs by Gramophone. In 2003, the BFO signed a cooperation agreement with the label Channel Classics.
Numerous outstanding figures from the international music scene have performed with the orchestra: Sir Georg Solti (who was the orchestra’s honorary guest conductor until his death), Yehudi Menuhin, Kurt Sanderling, Eliahu Inbal, Charles Dutoit, Gidon Kremer, Sándor Végh, András Schiff, Heinz Holliger, Agnes Baltsa, Ida Haendel, Martha Argerich, Hildegard Behrens, Yuri Bashmet, Rudolf Barshai, Kiri te Kanawa, Radu Lupu, Thomas Zehetmair, Vadim Repin, Helen Donath, Richard Goode and others.
Among the orchestra’s many important projects, their noteworthy opera productions have been widely acclaimed: The Magic Flute (Budapest), Cosi fan tutte (Athens), Idomeneo (Budapest/Athens), Orfeo ed Euridice (Budapest/Brussesl), Un Turco in Italia (Paris), the cycle of works marking the 50th anniversary of Bartók’s death (Budapest/Brussels/Cologne/Paris/New York), the cycle of Mahler symphonies over several years (Budapest/Lisbon/Frankfurt/Vienna), the series of performances for the centenary of Brahms’ death, a Bartók-Stravinsky cycle (Edinburgh/London/San Francisco/New York), and a Liszt-Wagner cycle in January 2004 (Budapest/Bruxelles/London). In 2005, the orchestra launched its annual Budapest Mahlerfest.
The ensemble places great emphasis on the performance of new music: performing many world and Hungarian premieres with composers such as Ustvolskaia, Eötvös, Kurtág, Schönberg, Holliger, Tihanyi, Doráti, Copland, and Adams. The orchestra also regularly commissions new works with composers such as Jeney, Sáry, Lendvay, Vajda, Mártha, Melis, Vidovszky, Tihanyi, Orbán, Láng, and Gyöngyösi.
To promote the artistic development of its members, the BFO has developed a regular chamber music and chamber orchestra series alongside its major orchestral concerts. Their Sunday afternoon chamber music events, the “Cocoa Concerts” for young children, the Haydn-Mozart series (where concerto soloists are members of the orchestra) and the “Open Dress Rehearsals” with Iván Fischer’s introductions to the works have all quickly become favourites of the Budapest music audience.
Iván Fischer has been the BFO’s Music Director since its founding 24 years ago.
Iván Fischer
Iván Fischer was born in 1951, first studying piano and violin, and later moving on to cello. After studying composition in Budapest, he graduated from Hans Swarowsky’s famous conducting class in Vienna. For two seasons he also worked as assistant of Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
Iván Fischer’s worldwide success as a conductor was launched in 1976 in London, where he won the Rupert Foundation competition. After a year working with the symphony orchestras of the BBC, he was invited by the London Symphony Orchestra on a worldwide tour. He was than invited as a guest conductor to many countries: in the US most notably debuting with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra with a Brahms series. In 1983, he returned to Hungary to found the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
Here he introduced new, intense rehearsal methods, and an emphasis on chamber music and creative work for each orchestra musician. The sensational success of this new orchestra, which has been repeatedly invited to the most prestigious music festivals including Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne, and London, established Iván Fischer’s reputation as one of the world’s most visionary and successful orchestral leaders. He signed an exclusive recording contract with Philips Classics in 1995. The Bartók and Liszt recordings won the Gramophone award, the Diapason d’or de l’annee, 4 cles de Telerama, the Arte, MUM, and the Erasmus prizes. Iván Fischer recorded the Brahms “Hungarian Dances” with his own new orchestrations, combining the improvisation of Gypsy musicians with a symphony orchestra. Since 2004, he has been recording for the Channel Classics label: the first three CDs with music by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler were extremely well-received.
As a guest conductor, Iván Fischer returns frequently to the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Munich Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has become particularly well known as an interpreter of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Mahler, and Bartók. In opera he has conducted a Mozart cycle in the Vienna State Opera, as well as productions in Zurich, London, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm, and Budapest. He has been Music Director of the Northern Sinfonia and Kent Opera, and served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Between 2001-2003 he was music director of the Lyon National Opera. He is artistic director of the annual Budapest Mahlerfest, which launched in 2005.
Iván Fischer is a founder of the Hungarian Mahler Society, and the Patron of the British Kodály Academy. He received the Golden Medal Award from the President of the Republic of Hungary, and the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum for his services to help international cultural relations. He has also received the Chevelier des Arts et des Lettres Award from the French government and Hungary’s top award in the arts, the Kossuth Prize.
In the coming season Iván Fischer will conduct Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, will guest conduct the Berlin Philharmonic, the orchestras of Cleveland and Pittsburgh, return to the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Israeli Philharmonic, and start his three-year work with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C. as principal guest conductor.