THURSDAY 14
ICO/Thomas Zehetmair Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin, 8pm, €25/€22/€10/€5, irishchamberorchestra.com; also Fri, Limerick
The public profile of Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) got a great lift through Peter Schaffer's 1979 play, Milos Forman's 1984 film of the play and, 20 years later, a CD of his music by Cecilia Bartoli. Thomas Zehetmair and the Irish Chamber Orchestra offer the composer's Sinfonia in D (Veneziana) as an opener to their mostly-Mozart concerts in Dublin and Limerick. Zehetmair is himself the soloist in Mozart's Third Violin Concerto, and the composer's delectable Symphony No 29 in A ends the evening. Between the two works by Mozart is Ernst Krenek's heartfelt 1946 Symphonic Elegy, Op 105, dedicated to the memory of Anton Webern, who was mistakenly shot the previous September during the Allied occupation of Austria.
Love Songs and Hiding Places Harty Room, Queen's University Belfast 1.10pm Adm free
Pianist William Howard has been immersing himself in love – well – love songs for piano, at any rate. A CD of Sixteen Love Songs was released in 2016, and two years later he followed up with Sixteen Contemporary Love Songs, including pieces from a competition that attracted over 500 entries. Two of the pieces are by Belfast composers, and feature in his free lunchtime recital at the city's Harty Room on the campus of Queen's University — Simon Mawhinney's Daniel Josiah is Sleeping, and Piers Hellawell's Love on the Escalator. The love songs are coupled with pieces by Chopin and Suk.
FRIDAY 15
RTÉ NSO/Timothy Henty NCH, Dublin 7.30pm €15-€25 nch.ie
The latest programme in the RTÉ National Symphony orchestra's oddly-conceived Towards 2022 mini-series features the unusual prospect of a non-Irish pianist in John Field's Piano Concerto No 6 of 1819. The soloist, Italian pianist Alessandro Taverna, has become a regular visitor to Ireland since taking the third prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition of 2009. The concerto is sandwiched between Gerard Victory's Three Irish Pictures of 1980 and the Symphony in G minor that EJ Moeran completed in 1937. Timothy Henty conducts.
