Budapest Festival Orchestra

 “There is an incredible amount of positive energy and vitality in both of them,” says Gábor Takács-Nagy, who has been drawn to the two composers since his childhood. The great conductor sees the two composers as spiritual medicine, and his series has been healing and curing at BFO concerts for years. This time, he conducts the Haydn Symphony, a favorite of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, followed by Mozart’s most popular violin concerto, and a serenade so long it extends to a whole concert section. The latter includes a later symphony and a violin concerto. The soloist of the program is the Belgian violinist Marc Bouchkov, who has Russian–Ukrainian ancestry and whose instrument strives to show its closeness to the human voice. “Undoubtedly: an exceptional talent”, wrote the critic of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.