Introduction and Allegro - Elgar
Violin Concerto - Mendelssohn
Symphony No 8 - Dvorak
Happily, for its return to the Kilkenny Arts Festival last Saturday after an 11-year absence, the orchestra brought a well-chosen mix of popular masterpieces. And the music-making, too, was of a kind to leave everyone in good spirits.
The soloist in Mendelssohn's E minor Violin Concerto was Nicola Loud. Her handling of the Mendelssohn was light in tone and manner, nimbly articulate and, ultimately, as refreshing as you could wish this most agreeable of concertos to be.
The rather weightier opening work, Elgar's Introduction and Allegro, wasn't always really tight in ensemble. And, though the playing had an al fresco energy, a sense of the overall shape of the piece remained elusive.
However, in the fundamentals of orchestral craft, the Ulster Orchestra is much more secure, these days, than either of RTE's orchestras. They play with real unanimity of purpose, respond meaningfully to dynamic markings below mezzo forte, balance the various instrumental choirs with regular sensitivity, and offer intonation that falls much more sweetly on the ear.
There was, to be honest, nothing really exceptional in Saturday's closing performance. But, to ears accustomed to the shortcomings of Dublin's orchestral life, and in a work as sunny, and distinctive in orchestral colouring as Dvorak's Eighth Symphony, the orchestra's virtues were as summer balm.
