Reinecke fails to revive

{TABLE} Lieutenant Kije Suite ............ Prokofiev Flute Concerto ................... Reinecke Symphony No 3 .................... Dvorak {/TABLE} THE German composer Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) was an important man in his day. He directed both the Conservatory and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig.

As a pianist, he was praised by Liszt for his "beautiful, gentle, legato and lyrical touch". He was once a prized purveyor of music for domestic use, and, to his dying day, was concerned to perpetuate the musical ideals of conservative mid 19th century Germany.

By the end of his life the price for his tenacity was neglect, and a collection of musical biographies published in Chicago in the year of his death confessed that "Reinecke was a prolific writer, but little of his music is now known in the concert room".

During his lifetime, it was his piano compositions which were held in the highest esteem. Today, his Flute Sonata, Flute Concerto and Harp Concerto are the pieces most likely to be encountered.

The assessment of his work published 120 years ago in the first Grove Dictionary now seems implausibly kind: "His style is refined, his mastery over counterpoint and form is absolute, and he writes with peculiar clearness and correctness."

Certainly, in the hands of the visiting Italian flautist, Marzio Conti, who played the Flute Concerto of 1908 with the NSO under Albert Rosen last night, the abiding impression was of a piece too lengthily and inconsequentially padded out with the intention of falling easily on the ear. Conti's fluency and agility were not in question, but the edgy wisp of his tone was a trait l found far from endearing.

Albert Rosen delivered genial, warm hearted if not always finely adjusted readings of Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije Suite (where, however, the over loud snare drum went sadly unchecked) and Dvorak's Third Symphony, where, for this listener, the general agreeableness of the musical temperament didn't fully serve to counteract the wearying fuzziness of detail that seems to be part and parcel of Rosen's style.