Ivan Fischer

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Mahler: Symphony No.5 (2014)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 01:14:12 minutes | 2,92 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:12 minutes | 0,99 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Digital booklet | © Channel Classics

The Fifth is the most Jewish of all Mahler’s symphonies. The first movement takes usto the unmistakable mood of Jewish lamentation, the finale to the childlike visionof messianic joy.As we know, Mahler converted to Catholicism. Views may differ as to whether hisdecision was opportunistic or a question of religious conviction. Christianity plays animportant part in much of Mahler’s music, though not in this particular work.Perhaps I may take the liberty of referring briefly to my own family. My ancestors(like Mahler’s) were merchants in a small shtetl in the Habsburg Empire. They wereobservant Jews. My grandfather, three years older than Gustav Mahler, decided toleave this religious lifestyle behind him when he went to study in Vienna. My fatherand his brothers were brought up without any religious education. They adoredGoethe, Mozart, Beethoven and Richard Wagner. One of the four brothers convertedto Catholicism when he married a daughter of a converted family. Later, underNazi occupation, when it seemed for a while that converting might help them avoiddeportation, two of my uncles and an aunt became Catholics; the other members of thefamily did not.Whether or not these decisions were opportunistic was never discussed in myfamily. Nobody cared – these were considered unimportant, personal decisions, partlydictated by circumstances. Converts or no converts, nobody practised any religion andeverybody adored culture. And they all hummed tunes like those in Mahler’s FifthSymphony.

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Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Ludwig van Beethoven – Symphony Nos. 4 & 6 (2010)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz  | Time – 01:18:35 minutes | 3,1 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: ISO SACD | © Channel Classics Records B.V.

‘Two fundamentally different symphonies: both works explore feelings from an entirely different point of view. The Fourth is about human feelings and moods: obsession, love (what a melody in the second movement!), happiness, fun, wit, (Beethoven’s most humorous finale!). The Sixth is about feelings that nature awakens in us: calmness, meditation, thankfulness. It has been an especially creative process to work on these masterpieces. We discovered that the Fourth Symphony sounds better with natural horns and trumpets. In the Pastorale we used a different seating arrangement, with the winds scattered among the strings, so that each soloist was surrounded by musicians playing the flow of Beethoven’s nature music. After the storm, when we hear the first tentative call of the clarinet, answered by the horn from a different mountain, as it were, we found it appropriate to use a solo violin, which is gradually joined by the whole orchestra.’ –Iván Fischer

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Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Bela Bartok – Bluebeard’s Castle (2011)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 00:55:18 minutes | 2,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic |  © Channel Classics Records B.V.

Despite occasional successful stagings of this opera, it is concert performances that stir up the feelings of audiences most. I have witnessed many times in performances of this psycho-drama that listeners, staring at the faces of the two singers for sixty minutes, or following a surtitled or printed libretto translation during Bartók’s deeply emotional music, were confronted with themselves. The prologue is very important; this is in fact a story about us. Usually, after the opera has ended, discussions break out, dividing men and women. Whereas everybody seems
to understand why Judit cannot resist her desire to open all the doors, Bluebeard’s character remains controversial. Is it right or wrong, necessary or unnecessary to keep certain doors closed? Why does he need to lock Judit up after she has discovered his secrets? Is the blood real, or does it exist only in Judit’s fearful imagination?
This Bluebeard is not a killer, even if he has a bad reputation and Judita sees blood everywhere. All the earlier wives are alive in his heart, behind closed doors. Bartók, who was himself a closed, shy man, seems to have been fascinated by strange-looking characters who turn out to feel endless love. This links Bluebeard to the Miraculous Mandarin.
I am very grateful to Mr Vikárius and Mr Somfai of the Bartók archive in Budapest, who drew my attention to a number of errors in the printed score which we have been able to correct in this new recording.
I also want to thank the Budapest State Opera, who lent us the very rare keyboard xylophone which gives the torture chamber scene its authentic colour. –Iván Fischer

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Petra Lang, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer – Wagner: Die Meistersinger (2013)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz  | Time – 01:04:22 minutes | 2,54 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: ISO SACD | © Channel Classics | Booklet, Front Cover
Recorded: January 2012, Palace of Arts, Budapest

Wagner is the giant among composers because he created his own world. Whereas others interpreted ancient and familiar mythology, Wagner created his own myth. Whereas others composed to librettos by poets, Wagner wrote his own texts. He evenbuilt his own opera house, which had to be different and innovative. Wagner was the greatest creative genius of music history.And yet this superhuman giant also had a sense of humor, clearly audible in thewonderfully constructed Meistersinger Overture. And he had intimate, sensitive lyricism, which moves us deeply in his Siegfried-Idyll. This lyricism is the most important aspect of Wagner’s music; Brünnhilde’s beautiful, longing melody which shines through the huge flame that absorbs her and the collapsing world. –Iván Fischer

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