Every festival has its individual purpose – it could be a composer’s legacy, a genre, an instrument, a place or several of these. This October sees the second edition of Budapest’s Liszt Fest, which seeks to define the city as a hub of culture and creativity by spreading events widely across the city. So let’s go on a short tour taking in some of the music venues for the festival, large and small, old and new.
We’re going to start at the eastern edge of Budapest’s central district by finding the giant column in the centre of Hősök tere (“Heroes Square”), one of the taller landmarks on the Pest side of the river. Avoiding the distraction of coffee and cake (always a danger in these parts) at Gundel’s restaurant and patisserie, we head south through the City Park to the newest and most controversial of our five venues: the House of Hungarian Music. Newest, because it just opened in 2021. Most controversial, because in a city that’s firmly rooted in its traditional imperial past, the House of Hungarian Music is decidedly 21st-century. Clever use of mirrors, tree-trunk-like pillars and a canopy cut into metallic leaf shapes give the building a magical impression of merging seamlessly into the surrounding parkland; architects love it, granting it a prestigious MIPIM Award at Cannes last year.
Inside, an extensive variety of exhibits, most of them interactive, showing different facets of music through the ages, both general and specifically Hungarian. Your position-aware audio guide gives you the stories about the exhibits nearest to you; my favourite is learning about the Hungarian “Dance house” movement, which started in the Soviet era. Where Latvia and Estonia had singing as a focus of cultural resistance which flew under the Soviet radar, the Hungarians used folk dance in a similar way to reaffirm the nation’s identity. Outside is a playground filled with things that you make sounds with by hitting them or jumping on them, to delight and inspire young children. And, of course, there’s a concert space. The Liszt Fest opens there on 8th October with a concert of gypsy music and Django-style jazz by Lajos Sárközi Jr's band, which has been playing this music for generations.
From the House of Music, it’s a half hour’s walk (or, if you prefer, a four-stop ride on the M1 Metro) back in the direction of the centre of town to where the cream of Hungarian musicians start their careers – the Liszt Academy (the Hungarian “Zeneakadémia” just means “music academy”). There’s also a park outside, although it’s pint-sized, especially when compared to the City Park; in the pedestrianised street are several mid-priced restaurants (the numbers were somewhat reduced by Covid, but we can hope that they’re recovering) and a fine statue of the composer, clearly modelled on his wilder days as a touring pianist, with wild hair and oversized fingers.
Head inside the foyer – at the same time, heading back in time to the Art Nouveau era – and make your way towards the Grand Hall, taking in a glorious blue and gold mural of Apollo and the muses. In the hall itself, you’ll see a generously proportioned concert space, dominated by an imposing Voit & Söhne organ originally built in 1907 and recently restored to its former splendour after years of decay. There are more than enough gilt and Art Nouveau curves inside to satisfy the most hardened of traditionalists, and it’s a lovely place to hear a concert. In this year’s Liszt Fest, it will host the concert programmes most closely associated with Liszt himself (much of the programme seeks to “represent the artist’s spirit in countless genres” rather than being undiluted Liszt, according to director Csaba Káel). Perhaps the most intriguing of the concerts is in the smaller Solti Hall on 17th October, in which piano, cimbalom, string and wind players explore Liszt’s heritage through his Csárdás and various folk idioms.
Leaving the Liszt Academy, carry on south-west towards the Danube, either a 20-minute walk or another three stops on the M1, to reach the third venue on our tour, the Pesti Vigadó (still, with difficulty, avoiding the enticements of the coffee and cake at the nearby Gerbeaud and Szamos). Take the trouble to walk past the Vigadó's colonnade and cross the square opposite (another small park... you’re beginning to get the idea by now) then look round. Your whole view is taken up by an imposing neoclassical building. It’s a fine sight on a sunny day, better still when it’s lit up at night and best of all if you catch it in “blue light” around 40-60 minutes after sunset, when there's enough daylight left for you to to see the details of the stone columns and statues, while the bright lights of the foyer inside shine through the generous windows with their patterned woodwork framing that prefigures Art Nouveau.
The original Vigadó was flattened by Austrian troops in the 1848-9 Hungarian Revolution, so the current building dates from 1865. It was an important ballroom as well as a concert hall, and it carries a generous slice of musical history: Johann Strauss II played here, as did his Hungarian counterpart Ferenc Erkel. Liszt, Bartók, Wagner, Brahms and Debussy all gave concerts here, as did the great conductors Bruno Walter and Herbert von Karajan. However, like many of the country’s public buildings, The Vigadó fell into disrepair in the Soviet era and has needed extensive restoration. The main staircase and foyer are back at their magnificent former glory and well worth a visit just for their architecture and decor. It wasn’t possible to restore the main concert hall to its original state and it’s on the small side, so it tends to get used for smaller-scale events. In this year’s Liszt Fest, the Vigadó’s Ceremonial Hall hosts a concert of Hungarian Gypsy music by the Rajkó Ensemble on 21st October. They're being joined by star pianist János Balázs to celebrate the ensemble's 70th anniversary.
Hugging the east bank of the Danube, the no. 2 tram is one of the world’s great scenic tram rides. It stops just across the square from the Vigadó, so hop on a southbound ride for half a dozen stops to the “Nemzeti Színház – Müpa” station. Cross the tram towards the river and you will arrive at Budapest’s largest cultural neighbourhood, containing the National Theatre (that’s the “Nemzeti Színház” bit of the station's name) and an airy, welcoming modern building: Müpa Budapest (who, as it happens, are the organisers of the Liszt Fest).
Müpa started life as a project to house the country’s Ludwig Collection of modern art, but quickly morphed into a broader cultural centre, under the influence of its lead architect, Gábor Zobocki, who had become convinced that Budapest needed a world-class concert hall since neither the Liszt Academy’s Grand Hall nor the Vigadó were large enough to accommodate a full-scale 20th-21st-century symphony orchestra (you can learn a lot more about the building in the interview he gave us earlier this year). Both of Müpa’s main halls feature in the 2022 Liszt Fest: the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall and the smaller Festival Theatre. The Béla Bartók Hall is the jewel in Budapest’s musical crown, with the cosiness of an interior mainly panelled in wood and a fabulous acoustic that gives warmth at the same time as enabling you to hear every detail of orchestral music (admittedly, if your idea of a good acoustic is a blended wash, it might be the wrong place for you). Unsurprisingly, the Liszt Fest’s highest profile concerts will take place here: the closing concert on 22nd October with Vikingur Ólafsson, Rafael Payare and the Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, and Plácido Domingo doing a zarzuela concert on 9th October. If you’re unfamiliar with the zarzuela, it’s a peculiarly Spanish musical theatre form that can include operatic and popular songs as well as dance. When Domingo was a child, his parents ran a zarzuela company in Madrid. The Béla Bartók Hall’s acoustic is highly configurable, which makes it adaptable to many other forms of music. Ravi Coltrane, son of legendary jazzman John Coltrane and a fine saxophonist in his own right, plays there on 18th October.
Click here to see all the Liszt Fest events.
This article was sponsored by Wavemaker Hungary, on behalf of MUPA.
