Budapest Festival Orchestra Performs Classics at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 24 February 2026 15:30

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee.

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Friday, February 6th, I had the enormous pleasure to attend a terrific concert presented by Carnegie Hall—the first of two on consecutive days—featuring the exceptional Budapest Festival Orchestra, under the brilliant direction of Iván Fischer, one of the world’s greatest conductors.

The event started auspiciously with a sterling account of Arvo Pärt’s haunting Summa from 1977, about which the composer stated in 1994: 

I have developed a highly formalized compositional system, which I have been using to write my music for 20 years. Summa is the most strict and enigmatic work in this series.

The superb virtuoso, Maxim Vengerov, then entered the stage for a fabulous performance of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s marvelous Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, from 1878. The initial Allegro moderato movement has a brief, slow introduction that precedes lyrical music of a strongly Romantic character that becomes more passionate as it develops, then builds first to an intense climax, before the elaborate cadenza, and then to a second one, before closing triumphantly. The ensuing Canzonetta, marked Andante, is song-like too but more subdued, while the Finale—with a tempo of Allegro vivacissimo—is propulsive and energetic—and joyful—even exhilarating, although with some quieter and more restrained moments, concluding forcefully. Enthusiastic applause elicited an excellent encore from the soloist: J. S. Bach’s Adagio from the Solo Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Minor. 

The second half of the event was comparably strong, consisting of a magnificent realization of the outstanding 1877 Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73, by Johannes Brahms. The initial, Allegro non troppo movement opens rather gently but not without some suspense, while some of it has a graceful, pastoral quality and, as well, there is some emotionalism throughout; after an extraordinary, quasi-fugal section, it finishes surprisingly softly. The eminent critic (and philosopher of music) Eduard Hanslick wrote of the ensuing, “broad, singing” Adagio, that it is a movement “more conspicuous for the development of the themes than for the themes themselves”; it is melodious and somewhat affirmative on the whole but not without solemn, almost tragic undercurrents, and has an irenic conclusion. 

The third movement—marked Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)—is lilting, even playful, with a cheerful, even exultant ethos, although with a serene ending. Hanslick referred to the “golden sincerity” of the Allegro con spirito finale, and described it as so “far a cry from the stormy finales of the modern school … Mozartean blood flows in its veins.” It is often exuberant but with contrasting passages; after a complex development, it closes jubilantly. After a standing ovation, several musicians in the ensemble played a charming encore: traditional Hungarian folk music from Kalotaszeg.