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“More Iván Fischer for New Yorkers!” – America falls in love with the Budapest Festival Orchestra
Conductor Iván Fischer and the Budapesti Fesztiválzenekar (Budapest Festival Orchestra) have returned home from a major North American tour to unanimous acclaim, with audiences and critics alike celebrating the Hungarian ensemble’s performances from New York through Boston to Toronto.
All four concerts ended in thunderous standing ovations, while reviewers from The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal described the performances as “captivating”, “electrifying”, “technically superb” and “rich in emotion”.
Budapest Festival Orchestra: Triumph at Carnegie Hall
After six years, the orchestra returned to the 2,800-seat Carnegie Hall, where it gave two sold-out concerts.
On the first evening, the musicians formed a choir to open with a work by Arvo Pärt, before performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major alongside Grammy-winning virtuoso Maxim Vengerov. The second half featured Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, while three players rounded off the night with Hungarian folk music as an encore.
A monumental Mahler journey
On the rest of the tour, the orchestra performed Gustav Mahler’s vast, 110-minute Third Symphony with mezzo-soprano Gerhild Romberger and local choirs at every stop.
The New York Times praised the performance as “a journey full of revelations”, highlighting several outstanding soloists but concluding that “in this symphony, the orchestra itself was the real star”. Fischer and his musicians, the critic wrote, displayed the stamina of marathon runners, combining elegance, momentum and emotional commitment.
The Wall Street Journal called the ensemble’s playing “electrifying”, while Arts Journal wished New Yorkers could hear Fischer more often. The New Criterion emphasised the orchestra’s astonishing clarity and the deeply “human” character of the Mahler interpretation.
Further praise followed from National Today, Concertonet and Broadway World, the latter writing that the performance did not merely impress but “reset expectations” and was technically flawless, intellectually coherent and emotionally overwhelming.
Young audiences and Boston success
After the Carnegie double bill, the orchestra also reached out to children with a special “Cocoa Concert” at the DiMenna Centre for Classical Music, organised by the Tulipán Foundation.
In Boston, the audience at Boston Symphony Hall – not known for excessive displays of enthusiasm – responded with minutes of standing applause. Boston Classical Review wrote that it was hard to imagine the symphony played any better, praising the musicians’ cohesion and almost instinctive communication. The Boston Globe described the concert as “transformative”.
Toronto and what’s next
Toronto critics called the concert “pure joy”, concluding that the BFZ had once again proved itself one of the world’s finest orchestras. During the visit, Fischer also led a masterclass for the Royal Conservatory Orchestra.
The Budapest Festival Orchestra’s international season continues in March with performances at Teatro alla Scala and the Berliner Philharmonie featuring music by Sergei Prokofiev, followed by another major tour to Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei.
For those wishing to hear the Budapest Festival Orchestra at home in Hungary, upcoming concerts can be found on the ensemble’s official website.
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