Serenade for strings - Elgar Piano Concerto in E flat K449 - Mozart Dekatriad - Raymond Deane Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge - Britten
THE Irish Chamber Orchestra is about to embark on its first US tour since its reestablishment in Limerick in 1995. A 17-venue schedule with John O'Conor as soloist will bring it to Washington and New York in a selection of programmes which includes ICO commissions from Gerald Barry and Raymond Deane.
The impressive transformation in the orchestra's playing since 1995 has been well documented in these columns. At the NCH on Sunday, in the last of three pre-tour concerts at home, their extrovert style was well displayed in Elgar's Serenade for Strings, here sharp rather than sweet, snappy rather than lingering. In Mozart's Piano Concerto in E flat, K449, John O'Conor compromised the plain-speaking agreeableness of his musical approach with hiatuses of memory or concentration which in two of the movements threatened to grind the music-making to a temporary halt.
Raymond Deane's Deka triad, written for 13 solo strings, plays with its material in obsessive ways, working from dissonant chordal interplay to a prolonged suggestion of tonal resolution which is simply stepped away from at the end. The ICO played it with palpable relish and conviction.
Given the orchestra's small size (currently just 16 players), their handling of Britten's Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge is lean and sinewy, concentrating on the opportunities for virtuosity and exploiting the work's wonderful palette of string colouring to the full.
