Gibbons, RTÉ NSO/Markson

NCH, Dublin

Mendelssohn – Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture. Berlioz – Les nuits d’été. Schubert – Symphony No 9 (Great).

For the second week in succession the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra’s Friday concert fell prey to the fallout of volcanic ash on air travel schedules. The advertised soloist, Christianne Stotijn did not make it to Ireland, and her place was taken by Irish mezzo soprano Anne Marie Gibbons.

Gibbons certainly has the voice to handle this most enchanting of song cycles. But her singing on Friday was on the wrong side of penny plain, as if the straightforward uttering of the notes could be expected to deliver all of the music’s magic. In spite of Gerhard Markson’s careful shaping of the orchestra’s contribution, that magic simply didn’t materialise.

Nor, it has to be said, was it sufficiently in the air in the handling of Mendelssohn’s

Midsummer Night’s Dream

Overture. Markson seemed reluctant to bring the necessary hush and expectancy to some of the quietist moments, favouring instead a manner that was fo- cused on sturdiness and security.

The best music-making of the evening came in Schubert’s

Great C major Symphony

in the second half. Here Markson’s approach was of an almost granite grandeur, leavened by songfulness and, in the Scherzo, through a springy lightness.

It was Schumann who referred to the “heavenly length” of this work, a remark that has come to haunt performances where the pacing goes awry. Markson’s was one of those which seemed not a second too long.