The co-founder of the BFO, Zoltán Kocsis, “was a musical giant, and a rare genius,” Iván Fischer wrote in 2016, on Kocsis’s passing. A number of recordings exist showing the two men making music together.
Iván Fischer founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra with Zoltán Kocsis in 1983. In 1992, Kocsis became the BFO’s artistic manager, and later its first guest conductor, soloist and chamber musician. Kocsis was awarded the Edison Prize for his recordings, with Iván Fischer and the Festival Orchestra, of pieces by Béla Bartók for the piano and orchestra.
In September at Müpa Budapest, we gave two performances of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with the solo performed by the young Croatian pianist Dejan Lazić. In 1987, at the ensemble’s concert at the Liszt Academy, the solo was performed by Zoltán Kocsis - a truly exceptional performance. Click here to listen to the entire recording.
Another concert included a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3; thankfully, a video recording of this is also available.
A two-and-a-half-minute segment of the recording of a joint performance of a Bartók piano concert also survives; the final and incredibly energetic two-and-a-half minutes, in fact, of the concert. Without further ado: Zoltán Kocsis on the piano, with Iván Fischer conducting.
