NCH, Dublin: Beethoven– Violin Concerto; Bruckner– Symphony No 4 (Romantic).

History has not been kind to Franz Clement, the player for whom Beethoven wrote his sole violin concerto. He’s remembered now not just for having given the premiere of the concerto, but also for having performed, with his instrument held upside down, a set of variations of his own between the movements. It’s a nice story, and though he did in fact perform with the violin upside down, the poster advertising the concert listed this work for later in the programme.

Never mind. Clement appears to have been quite a performer, renowned not just for his technical mastery (a contemporary described the violin as “his slave“), but also for his prodigious musical memory. The

Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung

wrote of him in 1805 – the year before the Beethoven premiere – that “an indescribable delicacy, neatness and elegance, and extremely delightful tenderness and purity are the qualities that indisputably place Clement among the most perfect violinists”.

At the National Concert Hall you could almost imagine that the Latvian violinist Baiba Skride was endeavouring to evoke the character of Clement’s playing, so easy and sweet and delicate was her tone.

She played the music as if she had found a way of powering it through its own purity, and didn’t need to burden it with any impositions of her own. At the same time she played with great freedom, the tone silvery light rather than golden rich, the manner reflective rather than urgent. With Czech conductor Jakub Hrusa securing orchestral support that was beautifully clear and classically poised, the performance has a peculiarly hypnotic effect.

The opening of Bruckner’s

Romantic

Symphony was marred by the tremulous tone of the horn solo over the murmuring strings. But once the music got into its stride, Hrusa proved a sure-footed guide.

He may not always have managed to keep the strings audible against the mighty striding of the heavy brass, but his shaping of small details and grand paragraphs was agreeably unselfconscious. At many points, this made the performance the opposite of the one heard at this venue in 2007 from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim. Barenboim’s approach constantly thrust interpretative micromanagement to the fore. Hrusa stood back more, and gave the impression of letting the music, in all its variety, flow a more natural course.