Ronan O'Hora (piano), RTECO/Proinnsias O Duinn - National Concert Hall
Gliuccelli - Respighi
Piano Concerto - Schumann
Symphony No 9 - Shostakovich
Shostakovich's tragic Eighth Symphony ran into trouble with official Soviet attitudes for not reflecting the country's changing fortunes in the war. His mistake was that should have been writing optimistic music.
His next symphony also proved problematic. Instead of the rumoured choral work celebrating victory, Shostakovich produced in his Ninth a symphony that was deemed altogether too light in tone.
The Seventh Symphony, the Leningrad, had created such an international stir that, much to the gratification of the Soviets, conductors in the US had competed for the right to give its premiere. The perplexity and disappointment at home about the Ninth were so profound that it took a full 10 years for it to be granted a recording by a Russian orchestra, by which time it had been recorded in the US, Germany and Bulgaria.
Shostakovich himself is quoted as saying, "It is a merry little piece. Musicians will love to play it, and critics will delight in blasting it." As a "merry little piece" it does not quite have the appeal of, say, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. Played straight, as the sole work in the second half of a concert, as it was by the RTECO under Proinnsias O Duinn on Friday, it tends to sound oddly inadequate.
Ronan O'Hora, the soloist in Schumann's Piano Concerto, was also in straight-playing mode. Even as reliable an evergreen from the heart of the romantic repertoire as this concerto can sound flat when handled in a manner that is routine and dull. That is certainly how it came across on this occasion.
