Hugh Tinney rounds off his survey of the Beethoven piano concertos at the National Concert Hall on Tuesday with a performance of the Emperor Concerto. The original plan of including Beethoven's arrangement for piano of the Violin Concerto has been dropped - a wise move, as, apart from a re-worked cadenza, the arrangement is mostly hack-work. And that most accomplished and successful of younger Irish violinists, Catherine Leonard, is being brought in to play the Violin Concerto itself. The Orchestra of St Cecilia (whose manager, Lindsay Armstrong, masterminded the project) is conducted by Robert Houlihan, who's managed to get better results from the OSC players than anyone else I've heard. Another series ending this week, is the Now and Then series programmed at IMMA by violinist Maya Homburger. Tomorrow afternoon's final concert brings an appearance by the contemporary music ensemble Gemini, in a programme of works by Barry Guy.
