Demidenko, Prague Symphony Orchestra/Pesek at the NCH, Dublin reviewed by MICHAEL DERVAN
Dvorak– Carnival Overture.
Chopin– Piano Concerto No 1.
Dvorak– New World Symphony.
Even in this age of globalisation there’s still a special pleasure to be had in hearing a Czech orchestra play the great works of the Czech repertoire. That pleasure was well to the fore at the National Concert Hall this week when the Prague Symphony Orchestra returned after a 16-year absence for a programme of Dvorak and Chopin under the baton of Libor Pesek.
There’s nothing particularly attention-grabbing about the orchestra’s approach to Dvorak. Yes, some of the wind instruments have a colouring or a manner that’s all their own. But the traces of vibrato from the horns or the sharp edge of moments in the clarinet-playing are altogether milder than they used to be in days of yore in the playing of orchestras from this part of the world.
There was nothing startling in the interpretive approach either. The key to the success of the concert lay in the naturalness of the music-making.
Pesek and his players did nothing, for example, to milk the famous slow movement of Dvorak's New WorldSymphony. Yet the unmannered, unsentimental approach to the great cor anglais solo didn't end up sounding simply matter-of-fact. It sounded just right. And this easiness, the sensation of a glove that's a perfect fit, was felt throughout the symphony.
Dvorak's rambunctious CarnivalOverture is often a bit of a problem in concert, and it was here, too, with the coating of percussive fizz and blazing brass creating a layer of excitement that obscured some of the string writing. The buzz was at times greater than the clarity.
Nikolai Demidenko was the soloist in a golden-toned, circumspect account of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto. It was the kind of performance that gloried in reflectiveness, offering moment after moment of thoughtfully presented, beautifully contoured playing. But there’s a flightiness in this music, too, and moments of fully expressed high spirits, which were downplayed by Demidenko.
The evening’s most enjoyable expression of exuberance came in the single encore, a Slavonic Dance by Dvorak, done with irresistible élan.
