Symphony No 44 in E minor - Haydn
Concerto for Guitar and Strings - Benjamin Dwyer
Symphony No 29 in A - Mozart
The Great Hall of the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, with its elegant proportions, suits the well-proportioned music of Haydn and Mozart. In last weekend's concert the orchestra was not raised on a dais but placed on the same level as the audience: this helped to create an atmosphere of intimacy and the feeling of a shared experience, but it was the loving attention to detail and the refusal to aggrandise the music that most involved the listeners in the music-making.
The approach of Bruno Giuranna and the Irish Chamber Orchestra was so faithful to the contours of the music that I was sorry that convention frowns on applauding at the end of each movement. How expressive Haydn can be when allowed plenty of air!
Benjamin Dwyer's guitar concerto was written to commemorate the death of Federico Garcia Lorca, but it avoids what Dwyer calls "the trap of sounding Spanish". It is an odd concerto in that the guitar, when not fighting to be heard above the tutti, is frequently in competition with a string trio, and the part for cello is often more prominent than that for guitar.
The heart of the one movement work is a passage for bowed strings alone which works up to a thrilling climax, after which the long guitar cadenza is very slow to build up a head of steam. The writing for guitar is, unexpectedly from this composer, less urgent than the writing for strings.
Mozart's Symphony No 29 is a more expansive work than Haydn's Symphony No 44 and the players enhanced this difference with a greater forward projection and rounder tone, ending the concert in a mood of jubilation.