Demidenko, RTÉ NSO/Remmereit

Mendelssohn – Hebrides Overture. Schumann – Piano Concerto. Debussy – La mer. Ravel – Bolero at the NCH, Dublin

At the end of February the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra brought one of Schumann's neglected masterpieces, the Thomas Moore-inspired oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri, to life as part of the Schumann bicentenary celebrations. This time it was the turn of the composer's hugely-popular Piano Concerto in A minor.

Russian pianist Nikolai Demidenko took an approach that was gentle and wise. It was as if he had a special key that enabled him, in a mostly quiet-spoken way, to coax and cajole the music to reveal its deepest secrets.

Everything came across as the expression of profound affection, and although there was time to linger over detail, nothing ever seemed to drag in the process. Even the tricky perpetual motion of the finale didn't run out of steam. Norwegian conductor Arild Remmereit was a mostly adaptable partner, though he had some clear disagreements with the soloist near the start of the piece. His approach to the evening's three other works also seemed firmer at the end than at the start.

This was to the advantage of Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture, which had sounded quite routine until Remmereit applied some spitting energy. There was energy aplenty, too, in his handling of Debussy's La mer, but the atmosphere was limited by the brightness of lighting that he favoured.

He was altogether more successful in Ravel's Bolero, patient and clear in the variegated instrumentation of the repeating pattern until the arrival of the second side-drum, when the sudden lurch in volume was less than convincing.