Levit/Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fischer review – edgy Prokofiev baffles and compels

Royal Festival Hall, London
Under Iván Fischer’s baton, clarinettist Ákos Ács and pianist Igor Levit guided the orchestra to hurtling heights – buzzing speaker notwithstanding

Concerts by Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra are always a little idiosyncratic – remember when playing Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony meant them sharing the RFH stage with a tree? – and this all-Prokofiev programme had its own subtle yet distinctive stamp.

It started with the Overture on Hebrew Themes. Fischer had Ákos Ács, the BFO’s principal clarinettist, standing out front as if it were a concerto – which it isn’t, but the clarinet is the guiding spirit of the piece, leading the klezmer melodies on which it’s based. Ács was a mercurial presence – almost dancing with Fischer in the centre, then shuffling over among the strings as if to hide when he wasn’t in the musical spotlight, but as engaging and virtuosic as a soloist in the whirling fast music.

With Ács back in his seat, Fischer and the pianist Igor Levit took Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No 2 and made this strange, colossal work sound more baffling and compelling than ever. The orchestra oozed in underneath Levit’s first melody and from then on the first movement’s music slipped artfully in and out of focus, the orchestra not so much beautiful as eerily glutinous. Levit built his big solo passage to a peak of forceful intensity; then, in the tiny second movement, he kept the piano motoring deftly on, as if impervious to the orchestra hurtling beside it. The mechanical feeling spread to the third movement, which began with almost inhuman stomping but cradled a little swaying dance at its centre. The last movement brought grand romantic sweep – finally, the stuff big piano concertos are made of, hard won. Levit’s encore, Schumann’s Der Dichter Spricht, was an introspective and deeply felt contrast, its spell unbroken despite throbs of static from a malfunctioning speaker high above.

After the interval, it was all about storytelling. A selection from the ballet Cinderella – Fischer our grandfatherly narrator – found the orchestra on more relaxed form, catching the music’s colourful, occasionally edgy charm. This continued into their encore, the Gavotte from the Classical Symphony: a dance that “starts young and ends old”, as Fischer put it. If it ended steadier than it began, it lost none of its spark.