The Budapest Festival Orchestra offer the closest thing there is to a live classical jukebox. At their Audience Choice events, concertgoers pick pieces for them to play on the spot. It’s quite something to see the Royal Albert Hall audience out-cheering one another in support of, say, Strauss’s The Blue Danube versus a spot of Brahms.
This will be a highlight of this year’s Proms — although spare a thought for the BFO’s librarian, riffling through about 250 sets of orchestral parts, brought all the way from Hungary, to find the people’s choice.
The UK is having a love-in with the BFO. They visit the Royal Festival Hall this month, performing Mahler’s Ninth Symphony; next, they have three concerts at the Proms and a residency
