When he saw a sea of face masks around Budapest, Hungarian orchestra conductor Ivan Fischer had an idea; turn this pandemic necessity into a tool of music appreciation.

Fischer’s music-enhancing face mask has two plastic cups shaped liked life-size palms attached to the mask’s strings and designed to fit around the wearer’s ears, allegedly allowing concertgoers in the age of coronavirus to enjoy improved acoustics.

“I got to this idea that it should look like a hand because when we put our hands here...” he said, cupping his palms around his ears, “... we always understand the other person easier, we hear the consonants, and the music sounds much more beautiful.”

Speaking as the orchestra rehearsed for an evening of Beethoven and Strauss, Fischer – the chief of the Budapest Festival Orchestra – said his masks help to emulate church acoustics, with warmer undertones and clearer, sharper contours.