Si j'etais roi Overture - Adam

Scherzo from Sinfonietta - Gouvy

Royal Hunt and Storm - Berlioz

Ballade - Faure

Fete Polonaise - Chabrier

The defined colour of the National Symphony Orchestra's playing was one of the consistently strong aspects of yesterday's lunchtime concert at the National Concert Hall.

In a programme of 19th-century French music, including such virtuoso orchestrators as Berlioz and Chabrier, this was welcome. However, most of the performances had rhythmic problems which limited the music's impact.

Therese Fahy brought a chamber music type of intimacy and lightness to the piano solo in Faure's Ballade. Her thoughtful, measured phrasing was apt in principle. But this delicately wrought piece - very sectional and full of contrasts - might have sounded more cohesive with an occasional bout of cumulative shaping and strong projection.

The performance was not helped by Colman Pearce's conducting of the orchestral part, which tended to follow along and not take a lead where that was required.

Berlioz's "Royal Hunt and Storm" from The Trojans saw some fine wind playing, but was wanting in that rhythmic charge which can make it an excitingly explicit evocation of physical events.

Nor was Chabrier's "Fete Polonaise" from Le Roi mal- gre lui as gripping as it can be. Its calculated pauses and displaced accents need perpetual tension, as if dancers are caught wrong-footed and long to step a regular measure.

The most well-rounded performance was at the beginning of the concert. Adam's Si j'etais roi Overture was colourful and vigorous. The rest of the concert never quite fulfilled the potential suggested by its impeccably shaped opening phrases.