This time, the BFO paints a cheerful portrait of Brahms, performing two large-scale compositions, each accompanied by a Hungarian dance. Pianist Nicolas Namoradze is a recurring guest of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. His performances have been hailed as “sparkling… sensitive and coloristic” by The New York Times and “weighty yet exquisite, and exactingly precise in tone and touch“ by The Guardian.

Recorded in Müpa Budapest in 2020, the incredible Iván Fischer joins forces once again with the famed Budapest Festival Orchestra, an ensemble he co-founded in 1983 that has flourished under his leadership into one of the world's preeminent orchestras. They begin the evening with George Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major, the composer's best-known work, lively and brimming with traditional Romanian rhythms. Virtuoso violinist Vilde Frang then makes her entrance to perform Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, a work that notably inspired two ballets by the great George Balanchine. The concert ends in fireworks with Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, one of the composer’s wartime masterpieces, written in just a month in 1944 and intended to represent "a hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty powers, his pure and noble spirit."

The charming Vilde Frang is the soloist of the Festival Orchestra yet again! This time she is to breathe life into Bartók’s score, his Violin Concerto No. 1. To begin the colorful program, a few of the vocal works by Monteverdi, accompanied by an ensemble of instruments, will be performed. Following Baroque musical jokes and 20th century sounds, the second part of the concert features Schubert’s most significant instrumental work, a milestone of romanticism, the last symphony he finished. Recorded at Müpa Budapest in November 2022.