Prometheus Overture - Beethoven
Piano Concerto No 1 - Beethoven
Piano Concerto No 4 - Beethoven
The opening concert of the ESB Beethoven Piano Concertos series made one eager for more. On the first three Tuesdays of this month at the National Concert Hall, the Orchestra of St. Cecilia, pianist Hugh Tinney and conductor Robert Houlihan play all-Beethoven programmes which include the five piano concertos.
In every respect which matters, this was a strong start. The full wind sound encouraged by Robert Houlihan gave proper recognition to Beethoven's scoring of the Piano Concerto No. 1 - for various groupings of strings, wind and piano; and you could hear every detail in the more blended textures of the Fourth Concerto.
In some fast movements speeds were a little more leisurely than is common nowadays. But they felt just right, because there was purpose in the approach to each movement.
The first half of the concert saw some ragged ensemble in slow music calling for clean attack - in the opening of the Prometheus Overture, for example. Yet there were no such problems in the second half.
Hugh Tinney's playing made these concertos sound like chamber music bursting its boundaries. This was achieved not by understatement, but by impeccable scaling and by exemplary rapport between soloist, conductor and orchestra.
It was a discourse in which the soloist could be a lion, but was always the first amongst equals, and in which the musicians seemed constantly to discover the drama within the music.
The extraordinary twists and juxtapositions of the Fourth Piano Concerto persuaded some of Beethoven's contemporaries that the composer had, at last, gone mad.
Nearly 200 years after the concerto was composed, Tinney's free-thinking insight and refusal to engage in histrionics acknowledged this music's still-revolutionary aspects.
Series continues at the NCH on November 9th. Booking at 01-475 1572.
