Home listening - Mendelssohn magic with Iván Fischer

The Guardian 0

Fischer and his Budapest forces cast a spell with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Plus a gripping new cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets

• Midsummer fever is all around: Radio 3 recently took itself off Into the Forest for a week, including al fresco breakfasts with the gregarious Petroc Trelawny, documentaries and atmospheric, forest-inspired In Tune Mixtapes (all still available on BBC iPlayer Radio). Meanwhile the Budapest Festival Orchestra, under its ever original music director, Iván Fischer, released a CD for fairies. “They listen differently,” he writes. “This recording is full of hidden messages which they will understand.”