Fountains of Rome - Respighi
Piano Concerto - Gershwin
Symphony No 5 - Prokofiev
William Eddins, resident conductor of the Chicago Symphony, who made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra on Friday, understands that Respighi's Fountains of Rome is nothing if it is not an orchestral showpiece.
The evidence of his efforts to provoke and cajole the orchestra to deliver of many things that they rarely yield was as clear to the eye as to the ear.
Eddins was a flamboyant presence on the podium, whether coaxing for an extra degree of restraint in pianissimo or winding up to the wham of a conclusive climax.
In spite of the sharpness of his focus on the moment, he did not get everything he wanted in the Respighi, nor did he find everything the music wants in Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony. But the playing always sounded well, and the was orchestra tighter, more disciplined, more colourful than usual.
Respighi is made for the Eddins approach; the most popular of Prokofiev's symphonies became a straggle of ideas, an extended experience in frustrating fragmentation. This, of course, could serve well as a description of Gershwin's potpourri-style Piano Concerto.
However, Eddins and his players made Gershwin sound as tight and sassy as ever I have heard from a group of Irish musicians. Although soloist Peter Donohoe viewed the piece through a more classically oriented expressive filter, there was a sense of energetic revelry in his approach that brooked no resistance.
And of resistance, of course, there was none. The Eddins/Donohoe partnership quite simply brought the house down.
