'It's as if you're circling like an eagle'  With its high entry
requirements and gruelling practice sessions, the Budapest
Festival Orchestra has become classical music's crack unit. Tom
Service meets its conductor, Iván Fischer Iván Fischer in
rehearsal with the Budapest Festival Orchestra Iván Fischer
conducts the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Photograph: Murdo
Macleod  Over a pre-flight coffee, Hungarian conductor Iván
Fischer is reflecting on his last London concert with his
Budapest Festival Orchestra. "We are not a normal orchestra," he
tells me. You can say that again: having just watched them on
stage, the players perform with an intensity and commitment that
blazes throughout the band. The back desks of the second violins
or violas play with as much fire and passion as the leaders, and
their inspirational music-making wowed audiences this summer
during a residency at the Edinburgh festival. They're back at
the Royal Festival Hall on October 1 with Schoenberg and Mahler.
1. Budapest Festival Orchest