Widely regarded as one of the world’s finest orchestras, the Budapest Festival Orchestra presents an exceptional concert that explores German Romanticism from two complementary perspectives: the symphonic world of Robert Schumann and the operatic drama of Richard Wagner. The connecting thread is the River Rhine, a symbol of nature, myth and cultural identity, present in both works as a physical and imaginary landscape.

Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish”, emerged from a particularly luminous period in the composer’s life and captures, with great expressive freedom, the landscapes and emotions associated with life along the Rhine, from the opening heroic impulse to the solemn movement inspired by Cologne Cathedral.

The programme culminates with the final scene from Wagner’s Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), one of the most powerful moments of the Ring. Ingela Brimberg and Hanno Müller-Brachmann give voice to the intense farewell between Brünnhilde and Wotan, marked by the Magic Fire.

This programme brings into dialogue two visions of Romanticism which, through different paths, strive towards the same ideal: music as a space of total expression. In the hands of the BFO, this journey along the Romantic Rhine becomes an artistic experience of the highest calibre.