The Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1907, originally as the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, taking its present name a century later, when András Keller was appointed artistic director and chief conductor. Under his tenure, they have become one of Hungary’s more prominent orchestras, and are partway through a UK tour, which reveals that they are indeed an excellent ensemble with a distinctive sound, the strings lean rather than plush, the woodwind poised and expressive, the brass warmly vibrant. Keller, meanwhile, also well known as a violinist, and founder of the string quartet that takes his name, brings a chamber musician’s instinct for detail to his conducting, with results that can be compelling.
Their London programme flanked Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto (Pierre-Laurent Aimard was the soloist) with Mozart’s Fortieth Symphony and Beethoven’s Eroica, and in both symphonies, you couldn’t help but be struck by the clarity and focus of both playing and interpretation. The Mozart was restless, troubled and driven onwards with considerable urgency, the dissonances of the andante really hitting home, the minuet trenchant and emphatic. Keller’s approach to the Eroica was for the most part comparably pressured: the opening was volatile and eruptive, the scherzo fiercely articulate (there was some terrific horn-playing here), the finale exultant as it should be. The sparseness of the string sound at the start of the funeral march was striking, though the movement itself took a while to gather the requisite weight and momentum.
Bartók’s bittersweet Concerto, written during his final illness as a vehicle for his pianist wife, Ditta, was beautifully done, meanwhile. Aimard, rather surprisingly, used a score, and played with great lucidity and dexterity, admirably pensive in the adagio religioso that forms the concerto’s emotional kernel, and always placing virtuosity at the service of expression in the outer movements, while Keller’s probing way with the work threw into relief both the subtleties of Bartók’s orchestral palette and the neoclassical rigour of the work’s form. The orchestral playing was rich in detail and very fine.
• At Cheltenham Town Hall tonight, then touring
