With no immediate prospect of playing to a live audience of human beings, the conductor Iván Fischer and his ensemble, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, recently performed four movements of Mahler’s 7th Symphony to an audience of fish and stuffed toys in the BFO rehearsal studio.
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‘Humans are sometimes optimistic or pessimistic. I wonder about fish,’ Fischer said, directing his comments to the fish tank. ‘This man who wrote this music is usually a little melancholic but when he is happy he is very happy. So listen to the happiest music there is, which sometimes becomes a little crazy. But it will be a lot of fun for you. So try to learn to have fun. Come on, don’t be so sad.’
Iván Fischer founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 1983, initially intending it for a limited number of concerts a year on a part-time basis. Since then, however, it has grown into a permanent institution, with a schedule of about 30 weeks of performing a year. From the start, its programming has been unique, with series including the Titok-koncert (‘bag of surprise’) concert series where the programme is not announced and ‘one forint concerts’ where he talks to the audience. Members of the orchestra have also been known to lay down their instruments and join together as a choir for encores. In response to COVID-19’s impact, Fischer invented an acoustic face mask that featured plastic hands cupped around the wearer’s ears. He said his masks ‘help to emulate church acoustics, with warmer undertones and clearer, sharper contours’.
All members of the orchestra tested negative for COVID-19 before performing to the fish. 