{TABLE} Ballet music from Don-Juan ........................ Gluck Don Giovanni Overture ............................. Mozart Flute Concerto .................................... Fergus Johnston Tannhauser Overture ............................... Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde ..... Wagner Meistersinger Preludew ............................ Wagner {/TABLE} CONDUCTOR Alexander Anissimov and the National Symphony Orchestra can produce playing of extraordinary quality. Anissimov's work with the NSO has been dominated by Russian music, so I was interested to hear the results in this refreshing, stylistically varied programme. Before a deft account of Mozart's, Don Giovanni Overture, there, was a neat performance of Gluck's ballet music from Don Juan, in which Anissimov directed a slimmed down NSO from the harpsichord.
That versatility does not hide the fact that Anissimov's strengths are especially suited to later music; so Wagner was the highlight he should be. The NSO was acutely aware of detail, and balance was just, even in the most mighty fortissimo. Nothing seemed careful or calculated the players seemed to drive the music along themselves, with a rhythmic intensity as strong in slow music as in fast. The Tannhduser Overture and the Prelude and, Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde were breathtaking in sustained intensity, and a supercharged performance of the Prelude to Die Me is tersinger made an exhilarating end to the concert.
Fergus Johnston's Flute Concerto was well served by these musicians. This 15 minute, three movement piece was commissioned by RTE and the NSO and written for the composer's brother, Gareth Costello, who played the solo part impeccably.
Unusually for a flute concerto, it is scored for large orchestra; and nicely scored it is, with the flute (piccolo in the slow movement) set against, distinctively coloured ideas and with a real concerto style tension between soloist, orchestra and ideas. Sometimes I felt that material could bear longer treatment, but this attractive piece aroused my curiosity for a second hearing.
