Haydon with spirit, grace

{TABLE} Symphony No 74 ........................ Haydn Piano Concerto No 2 ................... Beethoven Serenade for strings .................. Elgar Symphony No 80 ........................ Haydn {/TABLE} IT would have taken an uncommonly sharp ear to recognise the Irish Chamber Orchestra at the NCH last night as the same band that played there at the end of April. The change stands as a testament to the musical adaptability of the players and to the altogether remarkable fruit of a fresh encounter with an old musical friend, the conductor Nicholas Kraemer, who served as artistic director of the ICO during the late 1980s.

Kraemer's highest profile is as a director of period instrument ensembles, and he brought to the ICO in Haydn and Beethoven the dancing rhythmic lift, cutting edges and internal transparency which characterise period instrument performance at its best.

In many ways the period instruments fetish seems to have passed its peak, with many of the leaders of the field (most notably, perhaps, Nikolaus Harnoncourt) showing that performing style is not as instrument specific as the diehards would have had us believe. It was particularly gratifying to hear the ICO handle Haydn with such sharpness of observation, highlighting his unique musical wit and irrepressible fondness for the quirky and unexpected. Haydn's symphonies have suffered a certain professional neglect in Ireland in recent years. It's clear we now have an orchestra that can honourably redress that shameful state of affairs.

The performance of Elgar's Serenade for strings was comparatively understated, at its most persuasive in the quietest moments, but, for my taste, ultimately a bit too prim.

The classical stylishness that informed the Haydn provided playing of point and clarity in Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto, too. The soloist was Davide Franceschetti, whose finely gauged playing of the first movement was well nigh flawless beautifully controlled in proportion and scale, yet without taking the feeling of reserve to the point of seeming impersonal. The slow movement could with profit have yielded a little more warmth and the finale a little less angularity, but this performance as a whole showed a player who has matured a lot since taking first prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition just two years ago.