Perhaps the National Philharmonic Orchestra cannot give a finer present to the their Music Director, celebrating his fiftieth birthday in a mere two weeks time, than that extended to him at this concert. True, Zoltán Kocsis was not present, and so the real celebration is still to come, but this was precisely the gift: that at a concert with a routine guest conductor – with the master of the house away – the ensemble gave a production that met the most exacting expectations and demonstrated their complete reliability. Perhaps the keywords are reliability and solid quality. Not in today's sense with its suggestion of ennui, but in that understood by our grandfathers: above all reliable, then strong, sturdy, enduring, honourable, sensibly planned and well based. For me, this was the principal experience of the concert.
The evening's composers were Mendelssohn and Mahler, in other words, the basic romantic repertoire, the true home turf of this orchestra. One can never tire of the Overture and suite drawn from the incidental music to Midsummer Night's Dream, but for this reason it is hard to perform it so that it sounds fresh. This time they succeeded. Tempos can easily be driven, or bogged down. This time I sensed that they were each perfectly balanced. The orchestra's precise ensemble work guaranteed the basic pulse of the Scherzo, the dream fairy imagery could be demisted and the woodwind instruments could step forward as the true principal players in this fairytale wood, coming alive behind closed eyelids. The sound of the brass did not cause us the formerly accustomed anxiety when we waited for them to trip up. Instead they produced the Romantic German forest atmosphere of Weber and of course Mendelssohn. Otherwise, our sense of sure footedness stayed with us until the concert's end, since Mahler does not spare his hand in giving work to the brass.
I felt that it was in the Midsummer Night's Dream overture that the concept of guest conductor Leopold Hager's concert fascinated most. Accordingly, the accompanying parts were paired with the net-like veil of the string's sonority in an exceptionally suggestive, graphic – and if we can make a spatial comparison – sculptural manner. This section had the effect of acoustic bravura, and  I am sure that only the finest orchestras are capable of it. Otherwise I must characterise Leopold Hager's conducting as sturdy, honourable, sensibly planned, well based and other similar expressions. Peace deriving from sureness radiated forth – the knowledge of a good craftsman. I do not know to what degree we can attribute the entry of the musicians to the accuracy of his hand, but it is a fact that there were no problems here. Rather, it was inspiration – hard to account for – or at least something extra, definable as a kind of terse passion that was missing from his conducting. His has a decent reputation. He is a regular guest at the Vienna opera, the Metropolitan and Convent Garden, and frequently conducts the Gewandhaus, the Concertgebouw and other similar orchestras. He was now conducting the National Philharmonic for the first time. I felt that the orchestra offered him a prodigious pallet, but Hager only selected from it in relative moderation. The same was the case – as far as the relation between conductor and orchestra – in the performance of Mahler's Fourth Symphony. The song Das Himmlische Leben is part of the famous collection of folk poems beloved by contemporary German Romanticism, Die Knabenswunderhorn. The Heavenly Life this time appears in the shape of a village manor, where everything is in abundance. Mahler employs this naive vision of happiness to transmute the experience of banal earthly life and naturally its melodic world, raising it to the sphere where it can be well expressed in music. And if this elevation did not entirely succeed, this was not because of the orchestra. We could hear some superb individual achievements, particularly among the woodwind. I must particularly mention the oboist, who with his tone and musicality virtually drew a leading strand among the melodies. The soprano soloist Ildiko Raimondi is probably a much better singer than we heard at this concert – her reputation seems to prove it. True, she had a difficult job, having to sing after three movements of silence, but this is a technically bridgeable problem. Evidently, she simply had one of her off days, and all that transpired from her brief solo was that it would be well worth hearing her when she is on form. Although there were examples earlier, particularly in the last six months, the National Philharmonic Orchestra showed the audience just what important results have been achieved for the work that has been invested. A fitting gift for a 50th birthday.
(National Philharmonic Orchestra, Leopold Hager, Ildiko Raimondi – Music Academy, May 13th 2002)

János Mácsai
(May 18th 2002 .- Hungarian Radio, Új Zenei Újság (New Music Magazine))