welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. much of the world is now transitioning from locking down to living with covid—19, and that means that, in cities like london, cultural life is returning,

performers are back on stage, audiences can gather to enjoy them. my guest today is the world—renowned hungarian conductor and composer, ivan fischer, known for his innovative style. it has been a tough couple of years, so how easy is it to find the magic in music—making? ivan fischer, welcome to hardtalk. lovely to be here. it's great to have you here in london. let me ask you, how different has it been making music in the time of covid? covid had positive and negative effects on our life. the problem was that there

is no audience and actually we make music for people. this is actually easy for musicians to forget. some musicians make music to impress other musicians, and we always, i remind them, "we play for the audiences, we play for the listeners." and this is what we didn't have. that was terrible. now the good thing is that, actually, it made us realise how badly we need the audiences. i think there is a streaming tiredness in the world now. because for many months after covid hit hungary, hit europe, hit the world, you created a new way of performing in your budapest festival orchestra. you got small groups of your musicians to go online to perform chamber music. and ijust wonder whether that was satisfying

for the musicians, for you, or whether you just felt desperately frustrated. it was like, i have to come up with a line which mozart liked very much, like turning a necessity into a virtue. we had a problem of not being able to do normal concerts, with orchestra on stage and the full concert hall. how do you turn it into a virtue? first of all, we came to the idea that to have a small chamber groups is fine. you cannot have an orchestra, because too dangerous with this virus. three, four people, you can get away with that. so, the orchestra started to play much more chamber music,

and this is wonderful for them. they love it. and the other thing was, i imagine the audience, they cannot go to the concert, they are at home, now the age of streaming concerts starts. so, let's give them a concert every night, a new chamber music concert. we called it the "quarantine soirees" and we did a new programme every night. it was great fun and wonderful. you're known for your innovation, for your creativity. one thing you did, which i believe no other conductor would have contemplated doing, was you had a vaccine, i believe it was your booster jab, live on stage while you were conducting. why? why on earth did you do that? because there are people who are afraid of the vaccine, they are worried about...

..god knows what, i mean, i think it's a very, very complex group, the anti—vaccination club. there are people who are fanatically, radically against it, and there are others who just have a little worry, or fear. and i wanted to show, to demonstrate to them that to get a shot is a piece of cake. it's nothing. so, you can do it even while conducting an orchestra. it was very easy. you know, i have two hands, so i had my right hand keeping the conducting job. yeah? and i discussed with this doctor that i will let the other arm hang and he will give the shot here. and then the doctor came and gave me this vaccine. it was, i didn't even feel it. i have to admit, and i can only hope that hundreds of thousands of people then decided,

"0h great, i'm going to have my second "or third or first vaccine." it was all right. in a sense, it fits with your career, because for pretty much a0 years you've been leading, running the budapest festival orchestra and you, it seems to me, you've done it in a very different way from the more traditional approach of the maestro conductor who imposes his will on an orchestra. that is not your approach, is it? you are more collaborative and, in a funny sort of way, you expect more from your musicians, because you don't just sort of treat them as tools to be used. i think there is a lot of creativity in people, and it's very unfortunate if they have a job playing in an orchestra and all they are asked to is to follow instructions.

it limits their potential. and i always thought how wonderful it would be to have an orchestra where the creativity of the individual is encouraged, rather than suppressed. do you sometimes wish that classical music was a little less rigid, a little less formal, because you've talked about the dangers of the form becoming too tied to frozen rituals and to an older audience. and ijust wonder whether in the course of your career you believe you've been able to change that a little bit. the works we perform, they are sometimes much more exciting than they seem in this ritual, what you said. for example, if i may

take an example, beethoven's choral symphony, which everybody knows. when beethoven composed it, he probably thought that the last movement, when the human voice enters a symphony, it's a great surprise, because we have three movements with an orchestra playing, in the last movement people start to sing. it's a revolution. now, in our normal ritual, it's not a revolution, because what do you see? you see an orchestra and you see a chorus waiting there for their entry. where is the unpredictability? where is the surprise? so, i think sometimes the ritual doesn't fit

the original composition. so, i try to find ways to give a possibility for the unpredictable nature of music. so, what i did in beethoven's ninth symphony, i hid the chorus in the audiences. nobody saw the choir, "where are they?" and suddenly theyjumped up from the hall. maybe it's next to you there is a tenor, or here's a soprano and theyjump up. and then people had the feeling, "it's us, it's we, the people, who start to sing." and for me, it was a revelation much, much more than in the conventional ritual. that that story sums up a lot of what you try to do, because it seems you you're trying to find a route back to the fun, to the playfulness. i mean, musicians play music, you want them to be playful in a very literal sense. i think music itself is playful, i agree completely. we use this wonderful word, "play" for making music. it's great, isn't it? is it though, at the moment, when you look across the genre of classical music and the great concert halls, and you're going to be playing on the south bank here in london, in one

of the great halls for classical music, is it something that the people who go to classical music are capable of taking on? or do you find some of your audience is actually resenting the tricks you play, the uncertainty, the unpredictability? i always experienced that they are so happy when something real happens in a concert. you know, it's people seem so conventional and adult and grown—up, but what we want to touch in people is the inner child, the inner child of everybody who loves to play. and there is an inner child in all grown ups. let me ask about your decision

to become a conductor. we have this image of the maestro conductor. usually we think of him as very dominating, maybe a little bit volatile, a bit difficult. i'm not sure that you fit that stereotype. why did you want to be a conductor? you see, the answer is, the honest answer is i didn't! that i have a brother who is also a conductor, and he always wanted to be a conductor, when he was five he wanted to be a conductor! i had no idea what i want to become. and later i visited his class in this music academy in vienna, and there was a wonderful teacher and i thought, "maybe i should try too". and then we have a sister who is a psychologist, because, with two conductors, you need one! let me ask you also about something you said once, "90% of what a conductor does",

you said, "i don't even like, there's only about 10% of it "that i really enjoy." the music! so... is the 10%! right. so, the 90%, which i guess is about the ritual, the putting on of the dinner suit before the performance, of sort of making the big entrance, all of the grandiosity of it, none of that appeals to your ego? and what certainly doesn't is this idea of power. power is something i don't like. iwould... ..i feel sometimes that the way conductors work with musicians is that, "i tell you what to do," this sort of thing, urgh... ..it doesn't appeal to me.

and sometimes when i saw theatre directors work with actors, who work from inside the actors, who like to bring out the inner qualities of the actors, that is much more appealing to me. so, i tried to have the technique of theatre directors in the work, how i work as a conductor with musicians. and then there's the writing, the composing, because, having established yourself as an internationally—renowned conductor, you then started to write quite a lot, and you wrote an opera, the red heifer, which caused a real stir in your home country, hungary, and across europe, because it addressed very serious issues, the history of

anti—semitism in hungary. did you very deliberately decide to sort of take on a, you know, a political, a very sensitive subject in your music? you see, the opera has that world where it takes place, it's true, but the real issue of the opera is something else. there is a 14—year—old boy who betrays his father and accuses him of murder in a blood libel case and becomes the crown witness in this court case. now, why does the boy do that? because he wants to assimilate. he wants to step out of the old identity of this religiousjewish lifestyle,

and he wants to step out and be one of the outside world — the hungarians, the christians, not the jewish old identity. and the stepping out is combined with the luring of this outside world, of, "come, come be one of us." but it doesn't work. and then, at the end, the boy goes back to the family and this how, how to come to terms with what happened, this was the real interest in me. the anti—semitic surroundings is the frame. but, nonetheless, you are a hungarianjew, your family suffered during the years of nazi occupation and the holocaust.

you, i believe, lost your maternal grandparents in death camps, concentration camps. and right now in europe, in different parts of europe, including your own country, hungary, there are real concerns about the rise of a new form of nationalism, populism and with it, a form of intolerance too. do you feel deeply concerned about the political context you inhabit today? i have to disappoint you, but i don't belong to the concerned party. i'm much more interested in a general way of... ..integrating and bringing people together. but do you see that happening in your own country, hungary? i don't know. what i'm concerned about is how to overcome these barriers

of people who are holding on to their national identity. i mean, for example, we are here in london, i think, is there a brexit? i don't think that, i don't think it exists. for me, britain is part of the european culture. we bring stravinsky here in these days to london. a hungarian orchestra comes here. we have music lovers here in britain who speak the same language, the language of music. i think it's all one family, not these little groupings, how people lock themselves up in nations. i think in 300 years or 400 years, we will remember this period like we remember the medieval cities with their city walls, and now they have become tourist attractions.

that's a fascinating answer. and you made no reference at all to the political realities of your home country. i mean, prime ministerviktor orban is currently waging some sort of political war with the eu institutions in brussels. he stands accused of violating fundamental european values when it comes to the rule of law and human rights. you live in a state where funding for cultural activities is tied to, you know, meeting the requirements of the fidesz party and mr orban and his ideology. i don't know whether your own festival orchestra has seen any funding pressures, any withdrawal of funds, but i just wonder whether you sometimes feel, "it's perhaps better not to speak my mind, "because it could become difficult."

we could try that. for example, if i say something, let's see if it affects now the funding of my orchestra. i can only inform you that this is actually a good period in the orchestra's life. the hungarian government and the municipality of budapest both quite generously funded the orchestra, and we can make music without worries. this is a bit of like a wave, you know? at the moment we are very well looked after, so i have nothing to complain about. right. but does that funding that you still get from the state have any impact on your ability, or desire to speak your mind on political and cultural matters in your country? not at all. and i can tell you why, because people sometimes

think that governments, if the government is authoritarian, or more democratic, doesn't matter. but governments support musicians. i don't think it's true. i think governments support the audience in order to afford the ticket. what we musicians do is a service, and the government supports the cultural wellbeing of a community, or a nation, or a city, not us. the government supports the ticket price. the brilliant hungarian pianist andras schiff, he says he will not return to hungary, not play in hungary, as long as mr orban is prime minister. do you understand that position? andras is a very, very good friend and i have great, great respect for him. i personally don't do what he does, i go back regularly, ijust came

today from budapest. and i can tell you why i do that, because there are so many people who need our music there and we have a very large following and i can see in their eyes how much they need music. and this is what we provide, and it gives me pleasure to simply make music for people. before we end, i want to get you to consider the future. you have said that the symphony orchestra, the very idea of it, has to continue constantly to evolve and develop, or it will simply become a museum. you are still full of energy and creativity, so where are you taking the idea of the orchestra and classical music next? i think a symphony orchestra must reform in order to survive.

i would go even further, the danger is not that an orchestra becomes a museum, the danger is that an orchestra dies out like the dinosaur. really? yes, because they must reform, they must go with the age, they must recognise what the new generations need. and the danger is that orchestras play a limited repertoire the last maybe 200 years, the music of the last 200 years. now what will happen in 500 years, will we still listen to those 200 years? i don't think so. don't you, really? no, i think we have to reform. the idea that you mentioned earlier, playing beethoven's ninth, i mean, to take that as just one of the best known pieces of music in the world, everybody really thinks of it as completely timeless, that as long as there is human civilisation, there will be beethoven, there will be bach, there will be mozart.

are you saying maybe we're wrong? if you sit in your car and you open the radio, what do you hear? you hear a bit of beethoven, you hear a bit of bruckner, and you hear heavy metal and you hear indian ragas and you hear rap songs. it's a mix. this is our language today, the mix, whatever comes to you from the car radio. this is the musical language of the present generation. if a symphony orchestra only provides a small segment of that, it will not survive. it has to open the repertoire into many directions, and this is what we try to do step by step. for example, we have a group in our orchestra who play baroque music on original instruments. we have another group who play transylvanian folk music,

for example, we sing like a chorus. and we open these boundaries to make the symphony orchestra a more embracing larger, maybe a production house, you could call it, where all kinds of music is offered to the audiences, not only the narrow symphonic music repertoire. so, one day a little bit of heavy metal in your repertoire? ivan fisher, we have to end there, i thank you so much for being on hardtalk. thank you.

hello. the weekend brought us a lot of dry weather with variable amounts of sunshine. but the cloud did tend to break up more later on sunday so we've had clear spells through sunday night. that means certainly a cold start to monday morning. widespread frost to start off this working week but a lot of dry and sunny weather on the cards, at least for the next 2a hours or so. temperatures first thing, monday may be as low as low as —5, —6 across parts of scotland. very cold for northern england, northern ireland down into the midlands. a little less cold in the far south where a bit of a breeze blowing through the morning. but they'll be more sunshine compared to the weekend across many southern and eastern parts of england. elsewhere a little bit of patchy clouds drifting across wales, northern ireland, nova in england, southern scotland but it is looking dry.

it's all going to feel particular warm silly bit of a breeze coming in low easterly direction. temperatures at best on monday afternoon only between around about seven to nine degrees for most of us. despite a lot of spring sunshine around, it isn't going to feel particularly warm for this time of year. but dry with light winds, a pleasant day ahead on monday. as we move through monday evening and overnight into tuesday, there will be a few areas of cloud drifting from south to north. but still some long, clear spells so another cold night. probably temperatures not quite as low first thing tuesday as they are first thing monday morning. but still a widespread frost for tuesday morning. set to change a little bit through the day on tuesday because we've got a weather front approaching from the west. high pressure easing off towards the east. that means the breeze is going to be picking up, we'll see more cloud rolling in from the west and some rain for northern ireland and western parts of britain later in the day. eastern scotland, eastern england should stay dry with some sunshine all day. it will turn a little bit less cold. we are starting to see some of those temperatures back up

into double figures on tuesday. looking ahead towards the middle of the week and things are gradually more unsettled. as a weather front starts to try and work in from the atlantic, high pressure still sitting off to the east so they are only making slow progress eastwards across the uk. but what they are also going to bring is a change in wind direction. into wednesday, you can see yellow colours, this warmer air mass starting to move in with those southerly winds. yes, not as cold with temperatures on the rise but also turning wet and windy on wednesday towards the west. fairly heavy, persistent rain for northern ireland pushing into western parts of britain. in the east, should be largely dry but temperatures back into double figures. bye for now.

welcome to newsday — reporting live from singapore — i'm karishma vaswani. the headlines... harrowing scenes in ukraine — as russian forces step up their bombing of civilian areas. in irpin — residents flee for their lives under relentless bombardment. there is a fair amount of incoming fire coming into this now, artillery fire, there are loads of civilians around. a bridge used by civilians to flee the town was blown up to slow the russian offensive — leaving many elderly especially vulnerable. the international atomic energy agency says it's concerned about reports ukrainian authorities are having trouble contacting staff at nuclear plants now

under russian control.