{"id":3822,"date":"2026-02-09T00:18:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T05:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3822"},"modified":"2026-02-09T00:18:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T05:18:52","slug":"ivan-fischers-mahler-manfred-honecks-elektra-and-what-happens-when-an-orchestra-feels-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2026\/02\/ivan-fischers-mahler-manfred-honecks-elektra-and-what-happens-when-an-orchestra-feels-it.html","title":{"rendered":"Ivan Fischer\u2019s Mahler, Manfred Honeck\u2019s “Elektra,” and What Happens When an Orchestra \u201cFeels It\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“As the repertoire ages, as the world changes, we will have ever fewer Fischers and Honecks, and ever more Due\u00f1asas, Lims, and Chos. The outcome seems to me unpredictable. It could be a refreshment and it could be a dilution.<\/strong>“<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Ivan Fischer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A dozen years ago, Ivan Fischer came to Carnegie Hall with his Budapest Festival Orchestra for a Dvorak program. So revelatory was their performance of Dvorak\u2019s Eighth Symphony that, when he scheduled the same piece with the New York Philharmonic two seasons later, I requested permission to attend the rehearsals. The Philharmonic graciously complied. I wanted to see what difference the different orchestra would make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fischer\u2019s Dvorak was steeped in Central European tradition. The music\u2019s rusticities of song and dance were deliciously rendered. There were also details I had never noticed before \u2013 like the bewitching pianissimo chord unexpectedly ending the scherzo, revealed as a whispered residue preparing the sublimities of the finale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In rehearsal, the Philharmonic players — these days, an exceptionally youthful group without much inter-generational continuity — were amazingly quick to do Fischer\u2019s bidding. Everything was there except the boisterous passage in which the Budapest players had burst into song (it\u2019s an orchestra that sometimes sings). I enjoyed the Philharmonic performance \u2013 but as a facsimile. What was different about the Budapest players (handpicked by Fischer) can be summarized in three words: they felt it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These observations returned last night when Fischer and his orchestra visited Carnegie with Mahler\u2019s Third Symphony. There are various ways to approach this protean 100-minute work. Fischer\u2019s Mahler doesn\u2019t sound like Bernstein\u2019s Mahler, or Boulez\u2019s Mahler, or Abbado\u2019s Mahler. I would say that it\u2019s more \u201cMahlerian,\u201d stylistically, than other versions we are likely to encounter nowadays. As with the Dvorak performance, the lilt and affection of Mahler\u2019s dance gestures were ravishingly understood. Near the beginning of the piece, the sepulchral chords in the low brass, softly attacked, evinced an existential shudder. These were moments in which the players were collaborative. The symphony\u2019s 25-minute Adagio<\/em> finale was less stressed, more lyrically supple, more convincingly paced than in any other reading I\u2019ve encountered. Born in 1951, Fischer studied in Budapest and Vienna. He embodies a lineage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One week previous to Fischer\u2019s Mahler, Manfred Honeck conducted Beethoven and Richard Strauss with the New York Philharmonic. Born in 1958, Honeck is Austrian and was once a violinist in the Vienna Philharmonic. He, too, embodies lineage and tradition. Also, like Fischer, he at the same time goes his own way: his interpretations are personal. He fastidiously extracts details of texture and accentuation. He commands a rare plasticity of phrasing. Conducting his own suite from Richard Strauss\u2019s Elektra<\/em>, he seamlessly bound 35 minutes of music calibrated to yield a single, cumulative climax \u2013 exactly what Fischer had achieved in the Mahler finale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honeck\u2019s soloist in the Beethoven Violin Concerto was 23 -year-old Maria Due\u00f1as, with whom he has also recorded the piece. Compared to Honeck and Fischer, she is an immensely gifted young musician who belongs to no tradition. Her Beethoven is fearlessly original. Her command of the instrument is consummate. In these respects, she reminds me of the celebrated young Korean pianists Yunchan Lim and Seong-Jin Cho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the repertoire ages, as the world changes, we will have ever fewer Fischers and Honecks, and ever more Due\u00f1asas, Lims, and Chos. The outcome seems to me unpredictable. It could be a refreshment and it could be a dilution.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Beethoven Violin Concerto, for many listeners, peaks with a G-minor pianissimo episode preceding the first movement recapitulation. Duenas’s interpretation, here and elsewhere, beginning to end, was effusively expressive. Something was lost, I thought. A great performance of this piece, to my ears, is Joseph Szigeti\u2019s 1932 recording<\/a> with Bruno Walter. Szigeti could not play the fiddle as beautifully as Due\u00f1as does. But he achieves a stillness in this passage that feels fathomless. You can hear it here<\/a> at 11:05. And you can hear Due\u00f1as here<\/a> at 13:00.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How I wish New Yorkers could regularly encounter Ivan Fischer or Manfred Honeck. But that is another topic for another time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Manfred Honeck and Seong-Jin Cho, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Yunchan Lim, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an appreciation of an enduring \u201cFrench” piano lineage, chick here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Joseph Szigeti, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“As the repertoire ages, as the world changes, we will have ever fewer Fischers and Honecks, and ever more Due\u00f1asas, Lims, and Chos. The outcome seems to me unpredictable. It could be a refreshment and it could be a dilution.“ A dozen years ago, Ivan Fischer came to Carnegie Hall with his Budapest Festival Orchestra […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-ZE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3822"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3837,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3822\/revisions\/3837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}