Julia Fischer (violin), Philharmonia Orchestra/lorin Maazel, NCH, Dublin, Wed 8pm, €55-€110, 01-4170000
The Philharmonia Orchestra's current big project is City of Dreams, a nine-month journey through the music of Vienna from 1900 to 1935, with the orchestra's new principal conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen as the tour guide. There's no overt Viennese connection in the orchestra's Dublin concert on Wednesday, though the evening's conductor, Lorin Maazel, did make the international headlines when he attempted reform as manager and conductor of the Vienna State Opera in the early 1980s.
Maazel is a multi-talented musician, a composer and violinist as well as a conductor, and even appeared as soloist in his 1997 Music for violin and orchestraon CD. The work takes the concerto slot in the Dublin programme, played by German violinist Julia Fischer, who will be making her Irish début. The piece is framed by Fauré's Pelléas et MélisandeSuite and Sibelius's Second Symphony. Michael Dervan