NSO/Vladimir Altschuler

{TABLE} Ruy Bias Overture ........... Mendelssohn Violin Concerto ............. Dvorak Symphony No 2 ............... Brahms {/TABLE} THE Russian conductor, Vladimir Altschuler, has become known to Dublin audiences in recent years as an exciting exponent of the music of his flow countrymen.

At the NCR last night, the second programme of the NSO's Brahms series brought him westwards for the Second Symphony and works by Mendelssohn and Dvorak.

When it comes to Brahms, Altschuler appears to be an underliner. And just as with the text of an overmarked book, Brahms's music suffers In the process of being subjected to a plethora of points of emphasis. The Second is widely felt to be the sunniest of Brahms's symphonies, but Altschuler seems to feel the composer here to have been on the contrary, in volatile, often jowly mood.

The players of the NSO signalled enjoyment in the free rein of the Altschuler style and the abundance of immediate emotionalism also drew a warm response from the audience.

The soloist in Dvorak's Violin Concerto was the young Bulgarian, Vesko Eschkenazy. He rather laboured his way through the first movement, so that when the central slow movement arrived it almost seemed to move with a brisker pace than the Allegro which had preceded it.

The best music making of this concert was to be found in the overture, Mendelssohn's Ruy Blas, where the spirit and animation of the performance, not to mention the sheer brilliance of Mendelssohn's invention (in a work he completed in just three days!), amply compensated for the many rough edges in delivery.