Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra gave a wonderful concert last night at the Royal Festival Hall . Glorious playing. Fischer proves that good musicianship doesn't need dumbing down to be popular. Here's a clip of Fischer speaking Cantonese to announce an encore in Hong Kong in 2004. It's one of the most difficult dialects in the world with 9 tones and lots of variants instead of grammar. So the audience are thrilled that Fischer makes the effort un-self consciously. A friend comments : "I guess starting out life learning Hungarian gets the brain well wired for linguistic complexity. Reputedly very hard for foreigners to learn."
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Thanks for sharing: I forgot where I was in this concert. But as a Hong Kong audience I would definitely be lightened up by Fischer's try on Cantonese. It's very hard, not to mention he said it out loud without a cue card!
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