Kurt Nikkanen with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall, Friday 6 February, 2015

The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra’s concert, entitled Heavenly Lengths, opens as it means to go on with Beethoven’s monumental Leonore Overture No. 3. Beethoven famously took an inordinate amount of time to write Fidelio, his only opera, getting through four overtures (and a change of title from Leonore) before he was happy. A lovely bit of programming in the current NSO season sees performances of all four, and Beethoven’s castoffs stand up well to standard repertoire. The final abandoned overture, played tonight, is so highly regarded by posterity that it is often sandwiched between the two scenes of the opera’s second act. A huge movement of intense emotional power, with several novel orchestral devices, it ends with thumping final cadences that don’t make much dramatic sense during the opera but are thrilling in tonight’s concert performance. The NSO sound polished and energetic under conductor Patrik Ringborg, and some of the finest playing comes in one of the experimental moments: Colm Byrne’s gorgeous, mournful off-stage trumpet calls.

It was Gustav Mahler who introduced the practice of defacing Beethoven’s opera by inserting abandoned work in the middle, so it seems fitting that Blumine, a short tone poem that Mahler discarded from his first symphony, follows the overture. Ringborg currently holds one of Mahler’s early conducting jobs, and introduces the piece charmingly with a tale of arriving at his new desk to find Mahler’s personal file in front of him. Ringborg has an engaging gawkiness while conducting, a huge man with a habit of getting down practically onto his knees to coax results from the orchestra, but he pulls equally convincing performances from the players in both great German composers, Blumine’s gentle elegance flowing as nicely as the Beethoven bashed.

American violinist Kurt Nikkanen appears in a performance of Korngold’s famous Violin Concerto in D, showing evidence of a premium tone but bringing severe tuning problems, with a tendency to search tentatively for notes that suggests he doesn’t know the piece well enough. These are not problematic in the first movement, which comes across very well, but mar the latter movements. The prototype film-music orchestration of the concerto carries the required sheen, further evidence that Ringborg is an excellent, flexible conductor who has a good rapport with this orchestra.

The second half of the concert is devoted to Schubert’s final symphony, Symphony No. 9 in C ‘The Great’. This is an explosive performance with a particularly vivid account of the opening movement, with plenty of bite and pace. The beautiful slow movement holds on to too much of this aggression when a more tender approach would yield dividends. In this movement there are also some unfortunate balance problems between wind instruments, partly caused by a large and noisy string section. The rest of the symphony is highly charged and beautifully played. Ringborg asks for a strikingly unusual diminuendo on the final chord of the symphony – a risky gesture that falls just the wrong side of gimmickry but suggests this is a conductor not averse to the unpredictable.

Programme:

Beethoven – Leonore Overture No. 3

Mahler – Blumine

Korngold – Violin Concerto in D

Schubert – Symphony No. 9 in C major ‘The Great’