Hungary
Classical CDs Weekly: Bartók, Bruckner, BusoniSaturday, 25 May 2019Bartók: Complete String Quartets Quatuor Diotima (Näive)Technical infallibility is now a non-negotiable when it comes to Bartók's six fiendishly difficult string quartets. Still, there's much more to these pieces than simply hitting the right... Read more... |
Takács Quartet, Wigmore Hall review – strong voices in a glorious groupThursday, 16 May 2019When critics praise a first-rank string quartet, convention demands they claim that the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts. True enough, maybe, but with the Takács Quartet, each separate element really does blaze with a soloistic,... Read more... |
Total Immersion: Ligeti, Barbican review - exploring a 20th-century master mindTuesday, 05 March 2019A day devoted entirely to the life and work of György Ligeti celebrated this composer’s remarkable oeuvre through a sequence programme of film, talks and concerts of his music. The final two of these performances were a short recital of his choral... Read more... |
George Szirtes: The Photographer at Sixteen review – how grief becomes artSunday, 24 February 2019How long does it take for grief to crystallise into art? No timetable can ever set that date. The poet George Szirtes’s mother took her own life, after previous attempts, during the hot summer of 1975 in the outer London suburbs where she lived. The... Read more... |
Magda Szabó: Katalin Street review - love after lifeSunday, 13 January 2019This is a love story and a ghost story. The year is 1934 and the Held family have moved from the countryside to an elegant house on Katalin Street in Budapest. Their new neighbours are the Major (with whom Mr Held fought in the Great War) and his... Read more... |
1945 review - Hungarian holocaust dramaFriday, 12 October 2018Ferenc Török is firmly aiming at the festival and art house circuit with his slow-paced recreation of one summer day in rural Hungary. A steam train stops at a rural siding, two Orthodox Jewish men descend and with minimal speech, oversee the... Read more... |
Prom 55, Lisztes, Lendvai, Lendvay, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer review - unity and strengthFriday, 24 August 2018There seems no limit to the sheer creativity that fizzes from Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra. For their second night at the Proms, packed out this time, the theme was the meeting of classical and Gypsy musical traditions. And... Read more... |
Prom 54, Richter, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer review - independent-minded Hungarians returnThursday, 23 August 2018Two heartening facts first. Iván Fischer's much-loved crew remains one of the few world-class orchestras with an individual voice, centred on lean, athletic strings adaptable to Fischer's febrile focus (perfect for Enescu and Bartók, not quite so... Read more... |
DVD: Jupiter's MoonsWednesday, 07 March 2018There’s a terrific drive to Kornél Mundruczó’s Jupiter’s Moon, a cinematic powerhouse of both technique and ideas. The maverick Hungarian director’s film, which premiered in last year’s Cannes competition, may occasionally bewilder – such is the... Read more... |
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review – maturity from teenage playersSaturday, 06 January 2018Seventy years old and still imbued with youthful flair and enthusiasm – that’s the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, which pioneered new territory in its first concert of 2018 last night. The flair and enthusiasm also apply to Sir Mark... Read more... |
On Body and Soul review - terrible beauty, and beastsSaturday, 23 September 2017Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi’s On Body and Soul (Testrol es lelekrol) opens on a scene of cold. It’s beautiful, a winter forest landscape, deserted except for two deer: a huge stag and a small doe react to one another in the snow, a tentative... Read more... |
Senza Sangue/Bluebeard's Castle, Hackney Empire - uneven French-Hungarian mixWednesday, 20 September 2017Has Hackney ever seen or heard such a spectacle – a full Hungarian orchestra taking up most of the Empire stalls to complete the semi-circle of a relatively empty stage? And did enough of London get to hear about it? I certainly wouldn’t have done... Read more... |