Review

Michael Dungan reviews Míceál O'Rourke, RTÉ NSO/Pearce at the National Concert Hall

Míceál O'Rourke, RTÉ NSO/Pearce

Berlioz - Carnaval romain.

Chabrier - España.

Ravel - Piano Concerto in G. Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio espagnol.

Ravel - Boléro.

"There is a definite limit to the length of time a composer can go on writing in one dance rhythm (this limit is obviously reached by Ravel towards the end of La Valse and towards the beginning of Bolero)."

Ouch! The sentiment expressed in the famous barb by musical iconoclast Constant Lambert still garners much sympathy. With such an extraordinary amount of repetition, how can Ravel's Bolero possibly work? And yet it can, as it did in the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's Summer Evening concert on Friday night.

Conductor Colman Pearce's judiciously-graded 15-minute crescendo, and his spotlighting of the different voices which take it in turns to sing THAT tune, made the repetition fade to the background and brought out the mesmerising effect of Ravel's brilliant, unlikely exploration of colour and combination.

Pearce's involvement seemed considerably less in the programme's Mediterranean-themed music by Berlioz, Chabrier, and Rimsky-Korsakov, much of which sounded as if it were on auto-pilot. In fact, it was one of those programmes - in this case, geographically-themed - that must have looked coherent and logical at the planning stage. But in the execution there was simply too much geography, too much local colour. It was like shopping for after-shave: sniff one too many samples and they all start smelling the same.

The one work not infused with Mediterranean colour was Ravel's G major Piano Concerto. Though stretched by the high-velocity demands of the finale, soloist Míceál O'Rourke played with sparkling wit and spirit, both here and in the opening. That said, his unusual stop-go approach to the first movement gave it a fragmentary, episodic feel, and he opted for a rather cold, detached manner for the intimate central Adagio.

Here the meandering solo for cor anglais - arguably the instrument's biggest moment in the entire orchestral repertoire - often threatens quietly to upstage the pianist. Making sure that the threat was a real one was soloist Deborah Clifford, whose beautiful playing was the high point of the evening.

NCH, Dublin