Corsaire Overture - Berlioz
Piano Concerto No 1 - Chopin
Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune - Debussy
La mer - Debussy
French repertoire, the witnesses say, was one of the strengths of the early days of the National Symphony Orchestra (then the Radio Eireann SO), when Jean Martinon was around to conduct it in the late 1940s. Today, in French music, you get the feeling anything could happen.
On Friday, under Polish conductor Jacek Kaspszyk, the Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune got a fair old mauling, pulled out of shape, sometimes even smothered by the sort of over-solicitous nuancing which is the last thing it needs. The audience seemed mystified at such a wonderful and well-known piece sounding so poorly. The applause died before the conductor was off the stage.
La mer is more robust. It does, after all, include writing that is more directly rousing. But of Debussy's subtleties of colour and characteristic instrumental balance there was little evidence. The blind French pianist, Bernard d'Ascoli, made a name for himself by taking the fourth prize at the Leeds Competition in 1981. He's a strange sort of Chopin player, unperturbable, and apparently unperturbed by any real warmth of emotion, yet apt to rush for no particular purpose in rapid arpeggios. He makes a cultured sound, but his dynamic range is narrow, his colouristic palette limited. You could say he was a classicist in Chopin, with a nervous energy which takes over from time to time. But the playing sounded a lot less purposeful than that description would imply. Kaspszyk's handling of the orchestral part was loose and flabby. Berlioz's Corsaire Overture had more brio, but nothing of the pointed sharpness of ensemble that was really needed.
