As Mandarins go, they don't come more miraculous than this – a vivid, no-holds-barred performance. Everything tells: the flavour is right, the pacing too, and the sound has a toughened, raw-edged quality that's an essential constituent of Bartók's tonal language. Although lurid, even seedy, in narrative detail, this is ultimately a tale of compassion, and Fischer never forgets that. Observable detail, all of it musically significant, occurs virtually by the minute. Delicacy trails bullish aggression, forcefulness alternates with almost graphic suggestiveness: it's all there in the score. Fischer never vulgarises, brutalises or overstates the case; most important, he underlines the quickly flickering, folkish elements in Bartók's musical language that other conductors barely acknowledge.
The strongly individual character of the Budapest Festival Orchestra is delightful. The strings have a biting edge, the woodwinds a gypsy-style reediness, while brass and percussion are forceful and incisive but never raucous. This is Hungarian- grown Bartók that actually sounds Hungarian; if only other European orchestras would reclaim parallel levels of individuality.