Suite for strings - Janacek

Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise - Chopin

Nocturne Borodin Piano Concerto No 2 - Chopin

It's been a long time since I've heard playing as rough and unsettled as the Orchestra of St Cecilia offered on Wednesday night under Jean Thorel.

Janacek's Suite for strings is early and untypical, not an easy piece for which to make a persuasive case. But the Nocturne from Borodin's Second String Quartet is one of the finest things of its kind, and distressing to hear so clearly botched in performance.

The cut-down versions of Chopin's works for piano and orchestra - the wind parts, where indispensable and not doubled, transferred over to the strings - serve the purpose of bringing the music within the reach of the Orchestra of St Cecilia with a strings-only lineout. Miceal O'Rourke adapted ably to the smaller scale. His playing was ruminative in character and expansive in manner of delivery, but lacking that combination of lyricism and display that one expects to find in the music. That said, his contributions were the bright spots in an otherwise frustrating evening.