Hoffman re-told

RTE's 1984 entry for the Prix Italia was written by Raymond Deane. Rather than see his Krespel, a set of "four radiophonic tableaux, after ETA Hoffmann", languish on tape in an archive, the composer worked at his material again in 1990 to produce Krespel's Concerto, which retains an important part for solo violin but integrates the various vocal parts into a slightly larger orchestra.

For the original Krespel the composer compiled a text of his own (from an original story by Hoffmann and its adaptation in Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann) and in Kresed's Concerto he has provided headings for each of the movements - Dramatis Personae, Burial Scene, Carnivals and Liebestod. In spite of its title, this later work is intended less in the spirit of a violin concerto than that of a symphonic poem.

Perhaps the most thing about the piece is an apparent abundance of musical references. In the opening movement there's not just a quotation from Offenbach, but also, through the nature of the double stopping for the solo violin (played here by Alan Smale), an evocation of the concerto writing of the past.

The second conjures up an eerie, early music dance, and the third engages re creations of popular idioms, less, I felt, in the manner of Ives (as suggested by conductor Colman Pearce in his pre performance conversation with the composer) than after the fashion of some model altogether more gauche. This third movement seemed about as amusing as bad slapstick and the piece as a whole came across as oddly in consequential.

In the two 19th century works on the programme, Colman Pearce's heavy style suited Brahms's First Symphony in the second half much better than Weber's Oberon Overture in the first. This overture didn't respond kindly to a mixture of warm hearted urging and scrappy ensemble.

There was a stronger sense of drive in the NSO's playing of the Brahms, although the conductor too often yielded to the temptation of louder means faster, softer means slower. The balances between the various sections of the orchestra tended to be clotted rather than clear, and separate instrumental lines often coalesced instead of flowing with individual character and distinction. Yet, for all the flaws of the reading, the music was carried along with enthusiasm - and the performance notched up some moments of thrusting vitality.