Fine concept diluted

Poet and Peasant Overture - Suppe

Swan of Tuonela - Sibelius

Lemminkainen's Return - Sibelius

Capriccio Brillante - Mendelssohn

3 dances from The Bartered Bride - Smetana

Piano Concerto No 2 (excs) - Chopin

Legends of 59, Nos 1, 6, 3 - Dvorak

Mephisto Waltz - Liszt

Legends and Dances was the title of the RTE Concert Orchestra's programme at the National Concert Hall last night. The concept sounds fine - 19th-century orchestral character pieces inspired by folk dances or by legends. However, the intended theme was diluted by several items unrelated to it, and a succession of 12 short pieces by seven composers inevitably sounds bitty.

Inconsistencies were evident in the playing too, so that this concert did not have that reliability which can be one of the strengths of the RTECO and the conductor Proinnsias O Duinn. There were, for example, scrappy moments in the first two of the Three Dances from Smetana's The Bartered Bride, and Mendelssohn's Ca- priccio Brillante saw some very errant clarinet intonation.

The soloist in the Mendelssohn was Veronica McSwiney. Her playing was not secure enough for a piece which needs plenty of virtuoso dash; nor did it have that subtle characterisation which can make this music sound fresh. She was more persuasive in the slow movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto No 2 (the other movements were omitted), producing natural shape and some nice tone.

It was just as well that the best playing came in some of the best music, in Sibelius's Swan of Tuonela and Lemminkainen's Return, in the third of Dvorak's Legends Op 59, and in Liszt's Mephisto Waltz. These pieces had that rhythmic charge - in slow speeds as well as fast - and that overall confidence which one was looking for.