Ivan Fischer

Julian Rachlin

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Just a few soft drumbeats, then a lyrical melody from the woodwinds: right from the very first bars of his only, wonderfully song-like violin concerto, Ludwig van Beethoven shatters any expectations his contemporaries might have harboured. Herbstgold artistic director Julian Rachlin once again takes on this pivotal classical touchstone of the violin repertoire. Of course, the renowned Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer are also the ideal performers for such unprecedented innovations. After the interval, they unleash the exuberant joy of music-making in Beethoven’s Second Symphony. You would never guess from this festive, cheerful work that his hearing loss was already making itself felt back then – apart from the fact that the dramatic theme of the first movement of the Ninth is already foreshadowed in the slow introduction.