Irish Times critics review performances from Steven Isserlis with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and I Am Kloot at Whelans, Dublin

Steven Isserlis/RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra

at the National Concert Hall, Dublin

^{Dvorák - Cello Concerto.}

^{Prokofiev - Sixth Symphony}

By any standards Dvorák's Cello Concerto is a front-rank work, an equal of the indubitably great concertos written for the instrument by Elgar and Shostakovich. All this, and some of the reasons for the comparatively small number of cello concertos, came to mind during Friday's performance by Steven Isserlis.

After a worrying, poorly co-ordinated start the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and Alexander Anissimov, its conductor, settled into a reliable account of the orchestral contribution. Isserlis showed sound judgment in not pressing tone or volume to address the challenges of balance inherent in any cello concerto (surely one reason why several giants of concerto composition never produced one), and on the whole the orchestral playing matched him well.

Rarely will one hear the solo part of this concerto played with such unfailing beauty of tone or with such eloquent insight. Even if one was not entirely convinced by details there was purpose in everything, and in Isserlis's hands it was clear that this work deserves its reputation.

The obsessive, repetitive aspects of Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony invite citation by those who consider him a crude composer, wanting in the ability to do anything by understatement. Anissimov used its obvious aspects as a backdrop to more important things: flair at constant variation of material, well-calculated juxtapositions of material and style and, above all, an irresistible sense of progress. In the final movement his persuasive, multilayered view was epitomised by the way the strings set their long-note tune against the scherzo-like dash of the main texture. It was breathtaking to hear such sustained lushness emerge like a Tchaikovsky slow movement over the immediate visceral excitement of the ostinato repetitions.

Martin Adams

I Am Kloot at Whelans, Dublin

I Am Kloot remind you of Oasis without the hits. And not just because the battered Mancunian rasp of Johnny Bramwell, their singer and guitarist, means he could pass for Liam Gallagher with a throat infection. Kloot's blokey anthems are pure Morning Glory: unaffected, sentimental and under- pinned by warm kindergarten melodies. No wonder their fan base is so eclectic, a hotchpotch of slumming indie kids, dressed-down goths and ageing Oasis diehards craving a final Britpop fix.

Why Kloot are not one of the biggest groups in the world, or at least Ireland and the UK, remains a mystery, then. Bramwell, greying and petite, is a first-rate tunesmith, flitting from poetic yearning to sweaty bonhomie in the twang of a plectrum; you can wave your fists to his songs but simper in your pint to them as well.

Judging by this ecstatically received show, the three-piece have struck a chord with audiences too. Maybe it's their name - awkward, low-brow and baffling - or the fact that Bramwell's lyrics occasionally verge on the nihilistic that has doomed them to the margins. For all their jauntiness there is a brooding quality to Kloot's songs that makes for rather uneasy easy listening.

With a crescendo of classical music ushering Bramwell, bassist Peter Jobson and drummer Andy Hargreaves onstage, Kloot opened with Twist, a florid mid-tempo ballad boasting one of those niggling hooks that gets into your head and refuses to leave for weeks. They followed with A Strange Arrangement Of Colour: slower, creepier and, if Bramwell's patter is to be believed, inspired by an insomnia-induced hallucination.

You could almost see Kloot transforming into contenders before your eyes. Tracks from last year's self-titled sophomore album exuded a bittersweet air altogether more intriguing than forays into their breezy 2001 début, Natural History. That said, the night's highlight was the vintage 86 TVs, its slow-building, singalong melody culminating in a wrenching chorus of the sort that has eluded Oasis, among others, for the best part of a decade.

Perhaps commercial breakthrough isn't as far away as it might appear.

Ed Power