Symphony No 6 (Le Matin) - Haydn

Piano Concerto in D, K451 - Mozart

Piano Concerto in C, K467 - Mozart

Hugh Tinney's three-year project to perform all of Mozart's solo piano concertos entered its second phase at the National Concert Hall last night. In this year's programmes the concertos are all being prefaced by early Haydn symphonies, the same Matin/Midi/Soir sequence which the Orchestra of St Cecilia performed at St Ann's, Dawson Street, last summer under Geoffrey Spratt. The first offering, Le Matin, didn't greet the ear as freshly in the larger space of the NCH, where the many solos failed to stand out as freshly as I remember from the last performance.

Last year's Mozart performances raised questions of balance between piano and orchestra, with Spratt often allowing his players a dominance over the soloist (then playing a golden-toned Petrof piano) which seemed to work against the music.

This year, with Tinney, aristocratic and poised as ever, playing a louder-spoken Stein way, the problems remain. Spratt rarely encourages truly soft or conversational playing from the Orchestra of St Cecilia and often allows the accumulation of an undergrowth of sound which militates against the sort of clarity which Mozart, above all composers, needs.

That said, there was much to enjoy in the easy fluency and glowing natural buoyancy of Tinney's playing. And in the E minor section at the heart of the opening movement of K467, when the conductor scaled the orchestra down to match the pointed delicacy of the soloist, there was a fine illumination of the potential in this series which has yet to be consistently tapped.