NCH, Dublin
Mozart
– Flute and Harp Concerto. Schumann – Introduction and Allegro Appassionato.
Beethoven– Symphony No 1.
The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra’s Musical Postcards series took a kind of detour on Friday for its visit to Germany and Austria. Yes, the composers’ names were of the front rank, but the chosen works were all somewhat off the beaten track.
The biggest rarity was Schumann’s Introduction and Allegro Appassionato for piano and orchestra. It’s a piece that has a number of things militating against it. Its length of about 15 minutes is awkward to programme – audiences and orchestral managements like a little more for their money from soloists.
The chamber-music style of the introduction is anything but straightforward to bring off and the brio of the impassioned main section is compromised by treading the same paths too many times. Friday’s soloist, Finghin Collins, played it with a palpable enthusiasm that delighted the audience, but didn’t quite manage to surmount the music’s weaknesses of construction.
The visiting Dutch conductor Antony Hermus brought a bit more bite to the orchestral writing when the opportunity presented itself. He was incisive, too, in his approach to Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto, where the soloists, standing out from their accustomed place in the orchestra, were the NSO’s principal flautist Catriona Ryan and harpist Andreja Malir.
The Flute and Harp Concerto is a work that’s usually more delightful in prospect than in any actual performance. The instrumental combination sounds lovely, but the piece is not easy to balance.
Hermus set a brisk tempo for the opening movement and the soloists, especially Malir, responded with spirit. However, the music-making was limited by Ryan’s contributions, which at times were short on individuality and character.
Beethoven’s First Symphony was a delight from start to finish, stylish, zesty, with beautifully sprung rhythm, forward woodwind balances, and a bright, non-obliterating blaze from the trumpets.
This was Beethoven playing to send you out into a gray Irish summer night with a spring in your step.
