Symphony No 85 (La Reine) - Haydn
Piano Concerto No 1 - Field
Notturno Dvorak Piano Concerto No 2 - Chopin
John Field, "inventor of the nocturne", has never had it so good, at least not since the ill-mannered virtuoso, famed for the delicacy of his playing and the novelty of his musical expression, was himself alive to further his cause.
Last Wednesday night's programme from the Orchestra of St Cecilia - to be repeated at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on Monday - could almost stand as one of those old-fashioned one-to-one musical contests on the lines of Mozart vs Clementi. Read in this way, the result of the bout would have been a resounding victory for Field, but only because the allotted handicaps were so unfairly distributed.
The most usual tinkering with Chopin's orchestral parts is undertaken in a spirit of elaboration and improvement (by Balakirev on the First Concerto, by Cortot on the Second). On this occasion, however, the OSC instead dispensed with all of the wind parts in the Second. The redistribution of essential material among the strings proved little compensation when the orchestral playing sounded so undernourished (the total strength of the OSC came to less than half the number of violins in the NSO). And in the stark, rather angular style of Mice al O'Rourke, the solo writing did not stand up well to being shown in such clear relief.
Field's First Concerto (shorn only of its trumpets and drums) was presented in altogether more sympathetic light, and apart from a few moments of pianistic excursion which left the orchestra behind, O'Rourke's assertive manner served the music well.
Dvorak's infrequently-aired Nocturne didn't sing convincingly on this occasion and it was actually the opening work, Haydn's Symphony No. 85 (La Reine), which produced the most rewarding music-making of the evening. Here, Robert Houlihan secured one of the best performances I've heard from this orchestra, the fast outer movements buoyant, with a dancing spring in their step, the slower middle movements brought off with easeful grace.
