Budapest Festival Orchestra / Iván Fischer

Beethoven/Dvořák and Fischer/Schiff – two composers, two artists, one musical idea? No, definitely not, but art lives from contrasting musical approaches. Iván Fischer and András Schiff, both natives of Hungary, make use of the scope yielded by their long and successful careers for moments of politically motivated heckling. That in turn is a perfect match for Ludwig van Beethoven, who went down in history as an ardent admirer of Napoleon’s and, towards the end of his life, as a bitter critic of the Church. In a four-part cycle, Schiff and Fischer combine the Beethoven piano concertos with symphonic works by Dvořák.