Reviews

A review of what is happening in the world of the arts.

Kazazyan, Finucane, RTÉ NSO/Brophy

NCH, Dublin

Borodin - Prince Igor Overture

Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto

Stravinsky - Three Pieces for solo clarinet

Stravinsky - Symphony in E flat

Although the young Igor Stravinsky didn't pursue a course at the St Petersburg Conservatory, his private studies under Rimsky-Korsakov followed the conservatory pattern.

At the beginning he wrote a piano sonata, which late in life he described as having been "fortunately lost," although it had in fact survived, and was published in 1973, just two years after his death.

At the end was a symphony, the formal Op. 1, in which he followed the models laid down by his teacher and showed a clear mastery of a style of Russian music that he was very rapidly going to put behind him. Yet he clearly retained a fondness for it, and in 1966, at the age of 83, he made a commercial recording of it.

For modern listeners the symphony's most remarkable aspect is how little it heralds the Stravinsky we have come to know and love.

It's the evocations of Glazunov and Tchaikovsky that stand out, and only the fleet Scherzo is at all suggestive of the deftness that the young composer would soon be showing.

Yet though the piece is clearly derivative (Stravinsky was assiduous in meeting the demands of a teacher he described as being "like an adopted parent"), it also has a brio that's not to be taken for granted in the academic models it was following, let alone in student exercises.

David Brophy's performance in the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's ongoing Stravinsky survey at the NCH on Friday took the work very much at face value.

The playing was robust and often full-blooded, although some of the tempos sounded a bit cautious, and the finale was certainly taken too slowly to convey the spirit of a two-in-a-bar Allegro molto.

There were no such tempo issues in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, where the young Armenian violinist Haik Kazazyan (born 1982) kept things moving nicely and mastered the virtuoso challenges with ease, and sometimes with dazzling polish.

Yet at the same time this was a rather cool account, more calculated to inspire admiration than stir the passions.

There was a sense of reserve also in the evening's remaining performances. NSO principal clarinettist had the stage to himself for a studied account of Stravinsky's Three Pieces for solo clarinet, and David Brophy dispensed a clean-limbed reading of Borodin's tuneful Prince Igor Overture.

Michael Dervan

Martin, RTÉCO/Wagner

Mahony Hall, The Helix, Dublin

Blacher - Paganini Variations

Rachmaninov - Paganini Rhapsody

Beethoven - Symphony No 4

The chemistry of conductors and orchestras are every bit as mysterious as those of relationships and marriages.

One thing, however, that's sure at the moment is that Laurent Wagner and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra's concerts at The Helix are setting new standards in Dublin.

The programming of these concerts is mostly cautious, and the marketing of them is bland in the extreme.

Themed series sold as "A Tale of Four Cities," "Tales from Vienna" and "Beethoven PLUS" are unlikely to identify themselves as exciting or essential musical adventures either to audiences new to classical music or to listeners long familiar with it.

That's not to say that Wagner hasn't been doing his bit to step, albeit gingerly, a little bit outside RTÉ norms of repertoire, especially as they have applied to the RTÉCO.

The inclusion of Boris Blacher's Paganini Variations in last Saturday's programme, and Henri Dutilleux's Le loup the week before make this clear.

His major contribution, however, has been quite simply the freshness of his music-making.

And, if Saturday's performance of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony is anything to go by, he is leap-frogging the RTÉCO right over the RTÉ NSO in terms of one of the most remarkable developments of recent years, the mainstreaming of period-performance practices in the music of the Viennese classical period.

Thierry Fischer has already taken the Ulster Orchestra well down this road, and in Beethoven's Fourth Symphony Wagner took a similarly refreshing approach.

He coaxed from the RTÉCO such a lithe, taut responsiveness that was so lean in tone, alert in interplay, and often infectiously high-spirited, that the orchestra was hardly recognisable as the same group that had been heard at the NCH the previous Tuesday.

To be fair, the acoustic in the Mahony Hall at The Helix is a great help.

It's much fuller in the bass than the NCH, and seems altogether more accommodating of extremes of dynamic.

I'm not yet convinced, however, that it is as readily accommodating of pianos as of the orchestra as a whole.

Philip Martin's glittering fluency in Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody often blended a little too fully into the orchestral texture for my taste.

Yet, apart from Martin's reluctance to accommodate to the orchestra having the tune in the famous 18th variation, this was a performance which traded successfully on a kind of runaway exuberance.

It was good also to hear a representative work by Boris Blacher, one of a group of now largely neglected generation of German composers born in the first decade of the 20th century.

His Paganini Variations are written in a sly, witty, deftly showy style that would make an upbeat introduction to any programme.

This they certainly did on Saturday.

Michael Dervan