000344c70bfrHenning Kraggerud & the RTE National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall, Friday 7th February.

Ominous and dark, Modest Mussorgsky’s A Night on the Bare Mountain is as dramatic a piece of music as they come – and with Alan Buribayev on the podium for the night, we have a conductor to match. As he takes the stage and gets the nights music underway, he seems a man possessed. As he leads the National Symphony Orchestra through Mussorgsky’s work, with all its sinister tones, he never ceases to move. As he stretches to call on the brass at the back, or crouches low to bring the basses down, he resembles nothing so much as a puppet-master. As the flute takes a solo, and the harp and bells quietly come in, Buribayev settles back down, drawing a fine performance to its close.

That sense of drama, though, is not to be let up for long. Joining the NSO on stage is Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud, for Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto. Opening with a low pulse in the strings, before Kraggerud breaks in with a sweet and gently lyric passage that soon gives way to a tense and dark development. As the orchestra rises to the fore, Kraggerud stands immobile, hands crossed on his violin and head bowed, as Buribayev seems to draw the sounds up from about him. Kraggerud has a strong tone when required, and as he moves through the Allegro first movement he uses it to good effect.

Applause nearly breaks out at the end of the movement – thought it’s not so hard to understand the impulse, when the playing is as fierce as this – but is quickly stifled, to smiles from the stage. The Adagio second movement is no less dramatic, Kraggerud’s deep vibrato put to good use. The third and final Allegro movement is where the real fireworks come in though, Kraggerud called on to use every trick in the violinists book – his playing acrobatic as he takes his solos, before leading the orchestra to the finale.

Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 6, written in response to the Second World War, is an altogether more sombre affair. The opening Allegro movement is lyrical, at times unsettling – the mournful sound of the cor englais carries through the hall, the rumble of the timpani’s low underneath. The long, held tones of the horns, the piano below, bring the movement to a close. The Largo second movement is another lyric, sweeping piece – as the horns make their call, the strings rising, before the whole drops back to let the sweet sounds of the celesta and harp come through. It’s a strongly expressive piece, but Buribayev never lets it fall too far into sentimentality.

The third and final movement, the Vivace in E, is almost light-hearted as it begins. The strings so lively that an almost playful feel is created, and subsequently cut through by the percussion – a hard and darker sound. That back and forth continues throughout, and the tension builds. As the rest drop away and slow melodies are taken up in the wind, that tension is held – until the martial strings pulse, the horns give one final call, and Buribayev brings the whole thing to a close.

 Programme

Mussorgsky – A Night on the Bare Mountain

Sibelius – Violin Concerto

Prokofiev – Symphony No. 6 in E