Midsummer Night's Dream Overture - Mendelssohn
Trombone Concerto - Gr°ndahl
Karelia Suite - Sibelius
Swedish Festival Overture - Sumlautoderman
Le tombeau de Couperin - Ravel
Peer Gynt Suite No 1 - Grieg
Friday night's concert by the RT╔ Concert Orchestra proved an unexpectedly special event. A popular, Scandinavian-flavoured programme was conducted by Niklas Willacuteen, who was born in 1961 in Sweden.
From the start it seemed that he is a musician of defined views. The RT╔CO's rhythmic definition, precision in turning the corner of a phrase, emphatic dynamics and secure orchestral balance were always good to hear, even if Willacuteen's views were not equally convincing in every work. For all its clarity and energy, Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture was too calculated.
Yet calculation was put to good use when accompanying Gr°ndahl's Trombone Concerto, a rugged, direct piece written by this Danish pupil of Nielsen in 1924. The soloist was Stephen Mathieson, who has been the RT╔CO's principal trombone for the last 12 months. His range of tone, reliability and certainty as to what to do with this workaday, effective music were consistently impressive.
The orchestra was in especially strong form in Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin. The performance concentrated on Ravel as a melodist and colourist, and while it was full of elegant touches, it was also full of rhythmic tension.
That epitomised the main strength of this concert. Willacuteen conducted as one who seeks to understand how the composer thought of the music. Sibelius's Karelia Suite, especially its last movement, has had many lightweight imitators - remember the dinky theme for Dr Finlay's Casebook? But that suite and Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 originated in deeply serious theatre. The pacing and shaping they received in this concert was a refreshing reminder of this music's true purpose.
