Prince Igor Overture - Borodin
Violin Concerto - Brahms
Symphony No 2 - Rachmaninov
The main thread of the NSO's new season, "Rachmaninov Revealed", was launched with a performance of the composer's Second Symphony under Alexander Anissimov. At the time of its premiere in 1908, the symphony, with its lush, melancholy romanticism, was a fervent statement of resistance to the movements which were then signalling radical changes in the world of music. The year that ushered in Rachmaninov's new symphony also saw the premieres of Webern's Passacaglia, Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy, Schoenberg's Second String Quartet and Prokofiev's Suggestion diabolique.
Rachmaninov's indulgent expansiveness was long seen as problematic enough to warrant wholesale cutting, and even as persuasively committed an advocate as Anissimov still finds it necessary to shear some 100 bars out of the finale. In general, though, Anissimov's trusting patience with the music is highly impressive. The approach may be exceptionally spacious, but, within his unhurried exposition, he makes a convincing case that each new twist to the discourse, however recursive in nature, is actually an essential component in the overall balance.
In Friday's concert, his vision was supported by an especially responsive NSO, playing not only with an unusual weight and lustre of tone, but also with an attention to detail that's all too rarely evident in its concerts.
Indeed, on Friday the qualities shown in the Rachmaninov were conspicuous by their absence in the two works before the interval. Borodin's Prince Igor Overture was dealt with a brio that was short on finesse and atmosphere, and Brahms's Violin Concerto, with Kurt Nikkanen a dutifully neutral soloist, was made to sound both dull and overlong.
The matching of performers and repertoire has long been an area of major vulnerability in RTE's artistic management of the NSO. The sort of ongoing variability shown in Friday's concert is a serious liability in the building of standards and re-building of confidence that this new season purports to be undertaking.
