City Hall, Waterford
Dracula's House-and-Court Music - Kurt Schwertsik
Violin Concerto No 5 - Mozart
Serenade Op 10 - Einem
Symphony No 59 - Haydn
The Austrian violinist Ernst Kovacic is one of those virtuosos who rewards audiences by advocating music that is well off the beaten track. And for his first appearance in Ireland on Wednesday as a conductor, with the Irish Chamber Orchestra in the City Hall, Waterford, he was completely true to form. The programme offered pairs of Austrian works, from the 18th century by Mozart (Kovacic himself the soloist in the Violin Concerto in A) and Haydn (Symphony No 59, nicknamed the Fire), and from the 20th by Gottfried von Einem (the 1949 Serenade for double string orchestra) and Kurt Schwertsik (his 1969 "Transylvanian Symphony for Strings", Dracula's House-and- Court Music).
Kovacic's approach to the great classical masters was robust and purposeful, the tone very full, the detailing always revealing the touch of an acute musical intelligence.
Schwertsik, a man who moved in the 1960s from a flirtation with the avant-garde to an engagement with a broad spectrum of more popular idioms, came up with the title and movement descriptions for his Dracula piece only after the music had been written. It's a playful, decorative work, music of disguises on a multitude of levels, from the very title down to conceits like the fanfare figures in cello harmonics of the opening movement.
Gottfried von Einem was a major presence in Austria's musical life until his death at the age of 78, in 1996. He's another figure who abjured the radical exploration of dissonance in the 20th-century in favour of a more pared-down tonal palette. The Serenade seems typical of his work in that it is rhythmically sharp but harmonically static, with a fondness for ostinato figures and passages built up over long pedal points.
Kovacic handled both pieces with evident affection, offering a welcome insight into the achievement of two composers whose work is extremely rare in Irish concert schedules.
