Hommage a Brahms - Krzysztof Meyer
Piano Concerto in G - Ravel
Symphony No 1 - Brahms
It's not every day that audiences get the chance to sample the work of six different conductors of a single evening. But the opportunity presented itself at the NCH on Friday, when participants from the Dublin Master Classes conducting course presented a programme of works by Krzysztof Meyer (for which the Polish composer himself was present), Ravel and Brahms.
The course tutor, NSO principal guest conductor Gerhard Markson, offered some apposite remarks in advance: about the young conductors' need to be in control of themselves as a preliminary to controlling the orchestra, and needing to make a difference to the playing to warrant their being there in the first place.
The two major options for an orchestra facing an inexperienced conductor are either to do exactly what the conductor indicates (which can sometimes be painful for all concerned) or to play the music straight as they see it, and let the conductor work out how to exert control over a group that's already on a trajectory of its own.
The NSO's collective decision seemed to be for the latter, and witnessing the connection (or lack of it) between beat and gesture and musical result made for a fascinating experience.
The results, it must be said, were, for much of the time, finer than in quite a few of the NSO subscription series concerts I've heard over the last few years. The Brahms symphony - each movement under a different hand - had a focus, urgency, and often a weight in the lower strings that's not always to be found in the orchestra's playing. But, apart from considerations of basic tempo, the leadership often seemed to be more with the players than the conductors.
The exceptions were at the beginning and end of the evening, Estonian Mihkel Kutson driving Meyer's Brahms homage, more an idea than a piece, with confidence, and Spain's Josep Caballe-Domenech commanding intensity in the finale of the Brahms and successfully moulding it into a satisfying whole.
Owen Lorigan was the soloist in an orchestrally-unsettled performance of Ravel's G major Concerto, conducted by David Brophy. Lorigan, who's currently studying in Moscow under Pavel Nersessian, seemed altogether less concerned to make an immediate impression than when I last heard him. He now sounds an altogether more mature player, nicely settled, both musically and technically.
