Tonight’s concert sees the completion of solo violinist Baiba Skride‘s cycle of the five Mozart violin concertos with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, alongside his Symphony No. 31 in D major.

The first half is taken up by the first two concertos. Both are works which show the hand of a master without being masterpieces in themselves. The first, Violin Concerto in B flat major, is handled with vivacity and exuberance throughout the outer movements. Skride’s playing brings out a youthfulness which seems fitting in a work written by a seventeen-year-old prodigy. The slow middle movement provides the first of several magically quiet moments in the concert, with the violin threatening to disappear beneath the orchestra but always remaining sumptuously on the crest of inaudibility. The second concerto, in D major, is an altogether more elegant affair, unremittingly regal in tone. The highlight is the soaring slow movement, and in particular Skride’s superb cadenza. The finale, a perky and typically Mozartean Rondeau, seems to be over in a flash and yet holds some stunning moments.

After the interval, conductor Sinead Hayes takes to the stage for the symphony. This is an unusual work, cast in three movements rather than the standard four, and the lighthearted energy of the first half of the evening is replaced with explosiveness. Hayes excels in her debut with the orchestra, handling the symphony with great confidence, a clear technique and a dramatic interpretation. The final movement pre-empts Beethoven with its urgent thrust towards the final barline. Hayes was initially trained as a structural engineer, which perhaps explains her ability to pull the shape of the music to the surface.

Skride returns to close the concert with the third violin concerto, in G major, Strasbourg. While the first two concertos are prone to engage in empty virtuosity at times, the third concerto is Mozart at his finest. The first and second movements are magnificent, with Skride’s cadenzas once again standing out for sheer musicality. The witty third movement is taken at a dangerously fast speed, and it is a credit to Skride that the only noticeable defect is a single bar of scruffiness in the fiendish passage-work. The third movement contains one of the oddest moments in Mozart – a wistful, plaintive theme in the solo violin over pizzicato strings, which is heard just once before returning to the lighthearted material of the rest of the movement without further reference: one final pun from Mozart, fleetingly placing the most beautiful melody of the entire work in these jocular surroundings, as if to prove that his head was stuffed with too many A-grade ideas to make use of.

Skride’s playing throughout the concert is understated and unsentimental in the slow movements, with her remarkably simple performance bringing the power of the music to the fore with heartbreaking effect. The fast movements are scintillating and note perfect. In the cadenzas, she is given even more room to shine, and does so with great sensitivity. Nothing here is over the top. She is a servant to Mozart at every moment in this concert because of rather than despite her great talent.

The orchestra prove similarly excellent. They perform Mozart with a lightness and grace that works very well, and never sound old-fashioned. Tonight they balance this airiness in the concertos with power and dynamism in the symphony. To their great credit, as well as Skride’s, the soloist never disappears beneath the orchestra, indeed the balance of the two parties is very good all evening.

Programme

Mozart – Violin Concerto No. 1 in B flat

Mozart – Violin Concerto No. 2 in D

Mozart – Symphony No. 31 in D ‘Paris’

Mozart – Violin Concerto No. 3 in G ‘Strasbourg’