Hungary is a homeland of music. Its contributions to this art are amazing, for a country so small – for a country of any size, really. One of those contributions – a minor one, to be sure – is the Budapest Festival Orchestra, founded in 1983. Its fathers are the great Hungarian pianist Zoltan Kocsis and his compatriot Ivan Fischer, a conductor. Mr. Fischer brought the orchestra to Carnegie Hall on Friday night.

We saw him earlier this season, when he guest-conducted the New York Philharmonic. His main fare then was Rachmaninoff. His main fare with the Budapest orchestra was Mahler – but he devoted the first half of their program to two Hungarian composers, beginning with Dohnanyi.

No, not Christoph von Dohnanyi, the contemporary conductor – Ernst von Dohnanyi, the conductor’s grandfather, who died in 1960. Mr. Fischer programmed his “Symphonic Minutes,” Op. 36, a five-movement suite that is colorful, zestful, and folkloric. Also a little kitschy and banal. Probably the best movement is the last, marked Rondo, which provides boisterous fun. The orchestra played the suite confidently, with the woodwinds in the spotlight. So often, in music of this type – folkloric, national – you have woodwinds.

The “Symphonic Minutes” is far from Dohnanyi’s best work, but you may be interested in a little-known chamber work, the Sextet in C, Op. 36. Last season, some New York Philharmonic players performed it in conjunction with the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and it is delicious – a romping, sparkling revelation. Listen to it, if you can.

The other Hungarian composer we had on the first half of the program was the great Bela Bartok, represented by his Piano Concerto No. 3. This was the last piece he ever wrote. In contrast to his first two piano concertos – athletic, pounding – it is rather Classical, almost Mozartean. So who better to play it than the American pianist Richard Goode, a master Classicist who also excels in Modernism?

Mr. Goode has been heard a lot in Carnegie Hall lately, engaged in a “Perspectives” series, which features him in a variety of concerts. He was not at his most impressive in the Bartok concerto. Yes, he was clean and respectable, as he can’t help being. Absent was any harshness, distortion, or vulgarity. But, on the whole, he was too passive, almost disengaged. The performance gave the impression of a read-through – and, indeed, Mr. Goode was reading from a score.

Bartok’s final movement, in particular, was a disappointment. It was laidback, relaxed, without much tension, without much push. That is not an illegitimate approach – but Mr. Goode didn’t exactly sell it. He made the music something like dull, and it is nothing like dull, the way Bartok composed it. Mr. Goode can do better, and will again.

After intermission, Mr. Fischer conducted his Budapest orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, the “Titan.” Though the first of nine, this is no rookie symphony: It is one of the best symphonies in the entire repertoire (say some of us). Mr. Fischer has decided ideas about it. Whether you’re able to embrace them is a different matter.

Mr. Fischer drew from the orchestra a warm sound, and he gave off a sense of composure. The opening movement was quite gentle, Romantic – even plush. And Mr. Fischer took his time. For me, this movement could have had more life, more soul, a little more muscle. Things became a little flaccid.

Throughout the symphony, Mr. Fischer proved big on rubato – license with tempo – and this was especially noticeable in the middle section of the second movement. Some of Mr. Fischer’s liberties seemed calculated, unnatural. He walked up to the boundaries of fussiness, and, I’m afraid, sometimes crossed them.

In the third movement – with its funeral march – the principal double-bassist played beautifully, and so did the bassoon, and so did others. (I should also mention that the Budapest horns were satisfyingly accurate all through the symphony.) But that heavenly G-major section, so smooth and transporting? Mr. Fischer did not quite do it justice – it should have been smoother, more transporting, more heavenly.

The last movement is a terribly exciting stretch of music. It would have been more exciting, on Friday night, if this orchestra had been more precise. Also, Mr. Fischer was so slow in the slower sections, the music lost vitality. An enervation knocked on the door. This movement shakes a triumphant fist, or at least sings a triumphant song, but Mr. Fischer was rather calm. There’s more than one way to skin Mahler’s First Symphony. Kurt Masur, the venerable German conductor, specializes in this work, and from him it is almost like Beethoven: tight, driving, electric. There is plenty of room for Mr. Fischer’s more ruminative and poetic approach, and you might even call it more Mahlerian. But – what did I say about Richard Goode? – a performer has to sell it.

***

And was I talking about Kurt Masur? He happened to be back before the New York Philharmonic last week, in a subscription concert. Mr. Masur was music director from 1991 to 2002. He now carries the title of music director emeritus. Mr. Masur’s main work is to be chief of the Orchestre National de France in Paris, and chief of the London Philharmonic (in …). His tenure in New York was an outstanding one – a revitalizing one – and it’s always a pleasure to see him again.

His program consisted of Beethoven, Liszt, and Prokofiev. He began with a Beethoven symphony, No. 6, the one known as the “Pastoral.” Here is Beethoven enjoying some time in the natural environment he loved so well. Saturday night found Mr. Masur as he usually is: wise, musical, and convincing. He will be 80 next year, and seems to have lost none of his vim. He still does what I long ago dubbed “the Masur shuffle,” when he is excited on the podium: a kind of rocking, two-footed stomp.

In the “Pastoral,” he was insistent on right rhythm, and insistent on right phrasing – and he covered this symphony with geniality. Sherry Sylar was duly stylish on her oboe. And the Philharmonic’s horns were as well-behaved as the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s – better, maybe!

The second half of the program opened with two works for piano and orchestra by Liszt.The first was the old wizard’s Fantasy on Motifs from Beethoven’s “Ruins of Athens.” What was “The Ruins of Athens”? A musical play. And what do we know from the material Beethoven provided for it? Well, mainly the Turkish March – actually, only the Turkish March. Liszt includes it among his motifs.

And on hand to play this snazzy work was the Canadian pianist Louis Lortie. Mr. Lortie outdid himself: He was clear, confident, and dazzling. Nothing could have stopped him. He played with Lisztian panache, but also with eminent musical sense. As for Mr. Masur, he was astounding in his rigor, treating Liszt’s piece as though it were the most important thing in the world. Both Mr. Masur and Mr. Lortie were fantastic in their rhythmic discipline. They made this almost-forgotten work a total delight.

Who knew?

Next came a more familiar piece, Liszt’s devilish “Totentanz” (“Dance of Death”). Among the many virtues that Mr. Lortie displayed was the ability to play very, very loudly without playing at all percussively. He has obviously been extremely well trained. And he is just about as good in his nuances as he is in his pyrotechnics.

Last summer, another pianist played Liszt’s “Totentanz” with the Philharmonic, and played it brilliantly. That was Marc-Andre Hamelin. Like Mr. Lortie, he is from Montreal. There must be something in the Molson up there.

Kurt Masur closed his program with Prokofiev, a composer he likes a lot, and who likes him back, a lot. Mr. Masur conducted the “Scythian Suite,” which comes from a ballet. This is not Prokofiev’s best work, or even his 30thbest work – but Mr. Masur seems not to know it. He poured into it his considerable mind and heart.

When he bowed out – or was forced out – in 2002, I myself was not very happy about it, and feared that, in acquiring Lorin Maazel, we were going backward. My fears were unfounded, thank goodness: Mr. Maazel has been, on the whole, superb. Most everybody will recognize this once he’s gone. But Mr. Masur was a rock, week in, week out. Around the time of his departure, I wrote a piece about him called “Mere Excellence.” He’s not as glitzy or “hip” as some critics would like, and he doesn’t waste much time on bad modern music. He is merely excellent – good enough for some of us.