Budapest Festival Orchestra @ Usher Hall

The big signs at the front of Usher Hall said "PLEASE TURN OFF MOBILE PHONES" and then later "ICE CREAM ON SALE HERE", but what they should have said was: "FASTEN SEATBELTS". This International Festival concert by the Budapest Festival Orchestra started slow but ended with a heart-thumping performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Though Bartok's Rumanian Dances felt too pretty as it waltzed and two-stepped along the Danube, things improved when American pianist Richard Goode joined the orchestra for the Piano Concert no. 3: his fingers flowed effortlessly through the filligree of notes, showing a delicacy that could turn quickly to force. There remained an unwelcome docility in the orchestra's performance, but all this changed as the bassoon's ghostly notes opened Stravinsky's most famous work. It was a storm of blurts, gasps and suddenly beautiful themes, each musical phrase coming hurtling out of the musical bushes. When the orchestra rose to its thundering crescendos, you could feel the blood throbbing in the audience's veins: everything brought up, up, up to the fore. [Sean Michaels]