Fischer is alive to the magical atmosphere of Felix Mendelssohn’s score and nowhere more keenly than at the start of the overture, where the four wind chords are extended beyond their usual length, acting as a foil to the really hushed pianissimo of the strings that follow. The playing throughout is of the highest quality…It’s well known that it takes considerably skill for professionals to play badly on purpose, so full marks to the clarinettist for the comic noises in the ‘Funeral March’.

This Budapest Dream is a far more raucous and rustic affair than John Eliot Gardiner’s recent plush pastoral idyll with the LSO: it’s as if even Fischer’s fairies have dirt under their fingernails, and the spirit of Shakespeare’s ‘rude mechanicals’ is never far away. The horns and bassoons have an almost Mahlerian quality in the Nocturne, and likewise the tiny parodic funeral-march (incidental-music-within-incidental-music for Pyramus and Thisbe) wouldn’t be out of place in a Mahler symphony.

Fischer’s wonderful orchestra works as if everyone revels in what they are doing. The wind playing is glorious, though the scherzo’s magical trumpet solo doesn’t stand out enough.

It’s always been a favourite work of Fischer’s, and the depth he brings to this youthful marvel...is made out of precisely characterised instrumental colours and perfect shaping of the lines...Surely a disc of the year.

The performance standard here is extremely high, the coupling stimulating. ...both soloists are fine (the text is sung in German), and soprano Anna Lucia Richter shines in the three Fanny Mendelssohn lieder. Mainacht is superbly atmospheric, a true gem of a song, Ferne a poignant portrait of longing and Gondelied has a superb sense of flow.