Bach & Bartók

Budapest Festival Orchestra return to the Festival with a programme that celebrates their Hungarian heritage and showcases the vibrancy of music written for dance.

The Budapest Festival Orchestra and polymath founder-conductor Iván Fischer make a welcome return to Edinburgh after their popular 2023 performances. This programme celebrates their Hungarian heritage and pulses with the vibrant contrasts of dance – from the elegance of Baroque to the raw energy of modern ballet.

Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No 4 is an irresistibly lively take on a standard courtly form. Fischer echoes that sense of experiment in his own 21st century Dance Suite for Violin and Orchestra, a Bach tribute that dances from bossa nova to ragtime, tango to boogie-woogie.

In stark contrast to the thrilling work by Bach, Béla Bartók's dramatic music for the 'pantomime grotesque' ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin was banned for 'moral filth' on its premiere in 1926. Based on the Hungarian writer Melchior Lengyel's shocking 1916 short story, the score lived on in an orchestral suite, shorn of its most controversial sections.

0 Stars
As a conductor, Iván Fischer, inspirational founder of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, has never hesitated to wear his heart on his sleeve, or to encourage his musicians to do likewise.
The Guardian

Supported by James and Morag Anderson

Programme

Iván Fischer Conductor
Guy Braunstein Violin

Bach Orchestral Suite No.4 in D, BWV 1069
Iván Fischer Dance Suite for Violin and Orchestra in memory of Bach
Bartók The Miraculous Mandarin