Scherzando No.4 (Hob.II: 36) - Haydn
Piano Concerto No.1 - Bartok
Symphony No.10 - Shostakovich
Haydn's orchestral Scherzandos deserve to be played more often than they are. So it was pleasing to hear the National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Alexander Anissimov do Scherzando No. 4 (Hob. II: 36) with a precision of rhythm and colour which suited this astonishingly terse mini-symphony.
Classical repertoire has not been one of the more successful areas of the NSO's generally fruitful partnership with Anissimov. This performance was therefore especially welcome, for it was by some margin the best I have heard from them in music of that time.
In a very different way, Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 1 is terse too. Gerard Fremy was an assured soloist, but as his playing was not especially powerful, the orchestral contribution needed far more attention to balance than it received. All too often, the finely calculated piano writing was swamped.
However, that was not the main reason for this performance's problems. Music so sparse in melodic material perforce makes the most of other things: in this piece rhythm and phrasing need pi-point focus. The orchestral part is demanding, and on this occasion its twists and turns of rhythmic gesture suffered from a lack of purpose, throughout the first movement and at the end of the last. It was only in the slow movement that things came together well.
The difference in quality between this performance and that of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 was as between night and day. The symphony's first movement unfolded with relentless purpose, with that command of timing and orchestral colour which has been characteristic of many of the better concerts from Anissimov and the NSO. There were ragged moments, but this was a strong performance throughout, with the type of confidence which comes when everyone is at home with the music and inspired by it.