NCH, Dublin
Haydn– Symphony No 13. Mendelssohn – Italian Symphony. Brahms– Double Concerto.
Which of the Brahms Double Concertos do you prefer? The one with the super-charged cello, or with the turbo-boosted bass violin? There is, of course, only one, scored for violin and cello. And, to be honest, I hadn’t actually heard the second version before Wednesday’s NCH performance by Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis.
While it was true that the violin dominated to an extraordinary extent, Bell didn’t seem to have set out in any way to lord it over the cello. It was Isserlis’ gentleness of tone and inwardness of manner that were exceptional.
Each approach was almost perfect in its own way. The problem was that they didn’t actually match each other, and in combination they didn’t truly match the character of the music either.
Conductor Ian Brown successfully established a robust middle ground, steady and sturdy, in this strangest of performances.
The concerto was placed after the interval. The first half of the evening was given over to symphonies by Haydn and Mendelssohn, directed by the evening’s soloists with Isserlis playing from the conductor’s rostrum and Bell seated on a piano stool in the orchestral leader’s position.
You can take it for granted that the members of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields could probably play Haydn's Symphony No 13 (whose finale, intriguingly, shares its main theme with the much later finale of Mozart's Jupiter Symphonyand Mendelssohn's Italian Symphonyvery nicely without any outside involvement whatsoever.
But they’re unlikely to find an orchestral cellist who could deliver the cello solo from the slow movement of Wednesday’s symphony with the graceful poise that Isserlis brought to it.
And the sharp sculpting of the violin writing that Bell encouraged in Mendelssohn's Italian Symphonywas consistently invigorating.
In terms of internal orchestral balance, however, neither performance was of the finest, and in that regard the contrast with Ian Brown’s work in the Brahms was striking. But the lively spirit of the music-making was always engaging.
