Janos Ferencsik

Ferenscik was most acclaimed for his highly idiomatic performances of the music of Hungary, notably in works by composers such as Bartók and Kodály. Exceptional as these were, they tended to cause critics to overlook his merits as an interpreter of the more general nineteenth- and twentieth-century orchestral repertoire. Fortunately his recordings allow his musical strengths to be heard and appreciated. Of particular interest is the complete cycle of the Beethoven symphonies which he recorded with the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra, stylistically assured and highly musical. Other notable recordings include a sturdy account of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Julius Katchen as the soloist for Decca; a concert performance of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, with Dame Janet Baker as an enthralling Wood Dove, recorded by Danish State Radio and commercially issued by EMI; and a complete recording of Wagner’s Parsifal with the forces of the Hungarian State Opera.

In Ferenscik’s extensive recordings of Hungarian repertoire, notable are his account of Liszt’s Requiem with the Hungarian Army Male Chorus; a complete recording of Kodály’s Háry János with the Hungarian State Opera and the Suite from the same work with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra; Kodály’s Concerto for Orchestra with the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra; Bartók’s Viola Concerto with Géza Németh and the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and his opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle with Klara Palankay and Mihály Székely and the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. Ferencsik also conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra in an interesting and representative coupling of Kodály’s Psalmus Hungaricus and Bartók’s Dance Suite for the American company Everest, recorded in the early days of stereophonic sound.