Naughty Limericks - Rodion Shchedrin
Il maestro di cappella - Cimarosa
Symphony No 45 (The Farewell) - Haydn
This lunchtime concert at the National Concert Hall had a genial humorousness which sometimes worked better visually than musically. Haydn's Farewell Symphony makes its strongest impact if the musicians' gradual departure at the end concludes a performance which captures the music's unique mix of force and wit - its unexpected turns of style and gesture. Despite some nicely coloured playing, Alexander Anissimov's conducting did not produce the necessary emphasis of direction and shape.
The Concerto for Orchestra Naughty Limericks, by the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin (b. 1932), dates from 1963. Its pell-mell progression of popular tunes and neo-Classical acerbity came across vividly, though the playing would have benefited from more precision. Cimarosa's one-act Il maestro di cappella parodies the blustering efforts of a music director to coax playing of his liking from the orchestra. In the title role the Belarusian bass Victor Skorobogatov showed an excellent sense of theatre - first-class timing and the intelligence to know how far to press banter between himself, the conductor and the orchestra. Engaging as the performance was, some of the humour of a piece deeply rooted in style and period was glossed over, partly because the singing was too insistent for such deft music.
One could understand the idea behind the programme, the last before the NSO goes on its summer holidays; and this concert certainly had successful aspects. But musical humour is notoriously risky, and on this occasion did not work as effectively as it can.
