NCH, Dublin Tonight 8pm €10-€35 01-4170000 FINGHIN COLLINS (PIANO), RTÉ NSO/ALEXANDER BRIGER NCH, Dublin Sun 3.30pm €10-€35 01-4170000 PEKKA KUUSISTO (VIOLIN), BRITTEN SINFONIA/ THOMAS ADÈS (PIANO) NCH, Dublin Tues 8pm €15-€40 01-4170000
The National Concert Hall is the venue for three highly contrasted orchestral concerts this week.
On Friday, Alan Buribayev conducts the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in a chalk-and-cheese programme that features Grieg's Norwegian Dancesand Delius's Double Concerto for violin and cello (with NSO players Alan Smale and Martin Johnson) before the interval, and Prokofiev's Third Symphony, created out of material from the opera The Fiery Angel, which the composer had failed to get performed.
Two days later the NSO is back with the first of two afternoon all-Beethoven programmes. Finghin Collins is the soloist in Beethoven's Second and Third Piano Concertos, and the programme, conducted by Australia's Alexander Briger, also includes the evergreen LeonoraNo 3 Overture.
Cambridge-based chamber orchestra the Britten Sinfonia makes its NCH debut on Tuesday. Thomas Adès features as pianist (playing Couperin's Les barricades mystèrieuses), as arranger (of an orchestral version of the Couperin), and as composer (of Three Studies from Couperin, and the Violin Concerto, Concentric Paths, where the soloist is Finnish ace, Pekka Kuusisto.). The intriguing programme also includes Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperinand a handful of self-arrangements by Stravinsky.
