Hungary
Hewitt, Concerto Budapest SO, Keller, Cadogan Hall review - magical Mozart and bullish BeethovenTuesday, 07 June 2022
Considering its status as the most famous piece of classical music [citation needed], Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is actually quite rarely programmed in London. I can’t remember the last time I heard it live before last night, and it took the... Read more... |
First Person: folk violinist István 'Szalonna' Pál on true Magyar styleThursday, 02 June 2022
There's a famous saying that Hungarians are in the middle of Europe. From the West, we have Bach and Palestrina holding our hands; from the East, the Caucasian Turkic peoples. Other nations still need 1,000 years to understand what it means to be... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Hungarian MastersTuesday, 28 December 2021
Three films, each restored to glorious 4K, make up Second Run’s Hungarian Masters set. Billed as “essential works by three of Hungarian cinema’s most renowned filmmakers”, each film earns that praise in its own way.Zoltán Fábri’s ... Read more... |
Bluebeard's Castle 1: Bullock, Finley, Theatre of Sound, Stone Nest review - scenes from a marriageMonday, 08 November 2021
Which is the locked-in character of the two in Bluebeard’s Castle? In composing his one-act masterpiece of shattering profundity, composer Bartók clearly intended Bluebeard’s as “the tragedy of a soul destined to be alone”; the woman Judith unlocks... Read more... |
Bluebeard’s Castle 2: Komlósi, Relyea, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - consolations of solitudeMonday, 08 November 2021
Where is the stage – outside or within? The question posed by the prologue of Bartók’s only opera addresses the fundamental privacy of our thoughts, as well as setting the scene for its drama within the theatre of our own minds. For many of us a... Read more... |
First Persons: Susan Bullock, Gerald Finley and Stephen Higgins on a 'Bluebeard's Castle' with a differenceThursday, 04 November 2021
Tonight a version of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle launches in the intimate surroundings of Stone Nest, a former Welsh chapel in London's West End. Its conductor along with soprano Susan Bullock and baritone Gerald FInley, alternating in the roles of... Read more... |
Baptiste, Series 2, BBC One review - powerful comeback for the sorrowful French detectiveMonday, 19 July 2021
Baptiste (BBC One) has two powerful weapons in its armoury, in the shape of its stars – Tchéky Karyo as the titular French ‘tec, and Fiona Shaw as the central character in this second series. Both of them are astonishingly persuasive at conveying... Read more... |
Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer online review - Mahler movements for the fishSaturday, 20 February 2021
In verses from the folk anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn) set by Mahler as a song, later adapted for the scherzo of his Second Symphony, St Anthony of Padua sermonizes on repentance to the fish, who all listen politely and... Read more... |
Bluebeard's Castle, LSO, Rattle, LSO St Luke's online review - slow-burning magnificenceWednesday, 04 November 2020
Poulenc’s La voix humaine comes close, but Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle has to be the perfect lockdown opera, this heady tale of two mismatched souls stuck in a confined space (admittedly an enormous one) alarmingly pertinent. Simon Rattle’s London... Read more... |
Eavesdropping on Rattle, the LSO and Bartók’s BluebeardWednesday, 16 September 2020
One source of advance information told us to expect a reduced version of Bartók’s one-act Bluebeard’s Castle, among the 20th century’s most original and profound operatic masterpieces. Joining 19 other lucky invitees and some of the LSO brass... Read more... |
The power of resilience: flautist Noemi Gyori on positive ways to face adversityTuesday, 16 June 2020
The magnitude of challenges that the entire classical music industry is facing due to the coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented. In the twinkling of an eye, cultural life became suspended. Many of us, mostly freelancers and entrepreneurs, smaller... Read more... |
Classical music/Opera direct to home: 1 - Budapest's Quarantine SoiréesWednesday, 18 March 2020
The great Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau noted of 1920s Berlin that "itimes of trouble, people seek a better life in culture". But what if that culture can no longer be accessed live? Earlier this week theartsdesk brought you reports of two... Read more... |
