Violin duel Alexander Balanescu & Félix Lajkó

Whether you're convinced that classical music remains the art's highest form, or think anything to do with composers and symphonies is a pile of pretentious stuff for geezers-go to this show.

Because Tuesday's performance at the Academy is anything but typical, and the furthest thing from stuffy. In a masterstroke of meetings, it pairs two violin virtuosi: Félix Lajkó and Alexander Balanescu. Both are Eastern Europeans; Lajkó is a Magyar from Vojvodina in northern Yugoslavia, and Balanescu's a Romanian based in the UK. Each violinist has in his own way infused classical structures with boundless passion and innovation.

Their music and performances incorporate improvisational elements of free jazz, while borrowing rock's immediacy and intensity. An Eastern European heritage is evident in potent undercurrents of folk and a predilection for lachrymose minor keys. The final result is fireworks with strings.

Lajkó's the youngster here. Aside from some hard-to-find studio recordings, his record of note is one made at the same venue two years ago, the stunning Live at Academy. Manic yet melancholy, frenzied yet smooth, Lajkó's performances are a study in incandescent master of an instrument. Though he's conservatory-trained, this wild boy has also played the main stage at the Sziget rock festival.

Alexander Balanescu has a longer résumé, going back to 1987 and the formation of the quartet he leads. From idiosyncratic recordings like Luminitza (1994) to deft performances of compositions by Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman, Balanescu plows his own furrow. He can be polite and elegant, as on his soundtrack to the film Angels & Insects (in which he also appears) or weirdly political, as he is on "Democracy" (on which he shouts9 from Luminitza. Last year Balanescu also lent his string skills to Muzsikás'Bartók Album.

Like Lajkó, Balanescu's at home playing diverse venues, from London's South Bank and New York's Knitting Factory to warming up 10.000 Pet Shop Boys fans at Wembley Stadium.

Both fiddlers play Budapest regularly, but this is the first time they've been paired at the Academy. Buy your ticket now. I am serious.