A Life For The Tsar - GlinkaRhapsody Concerto for Viola and Orchestra - MartinuSlavonic Dances Op 46 (excs) - Dvorak

RTE Concert Orchestra produced some fresh and varied playing in the lunchtime concert at the National Concert Hall last Tuesday. The longest of the three items on the programme was the Rhapsody Concerto for Viola and Orchestra by Martinu, whose music can sound infuriatingly vacuous if over-dramatised and dull if understated; so it was good to hear this performance strike a moderate tone. John Vallery played the solo part in an undemonstrative yet well-rounded way, while conductor Proinnsias O Duinn and the RTECO were sympathetic and reliable.

The performance of Glinka's A Life For The Tsar overture had a pleasing mix of perkiness and robustness; but the concert's highlight was four of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances. This music is often played with a mix of mock-rustic roughness and exaggerated phrasing which does scant justice to the subtlety of Dvorak's ideas. Not this performance, however. Phrasing was long-breathed, and the rhythmically alive playing included some beautifully deft touches in grading orchestral colour and balancing many-stranded textures.