Alexander Anissimov opened the new subscription season of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall on Friday, with a programme that presented music from Spain and Russia, including a work of Russian origin and Spanish influence.

Achúcarro, RTÉ NSO/Anissimov. NCH, Dublin

Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio espagnol. Falla - Nights in the Gardens of Spain. Tchaikovsky - Symphony No 4.

Rimsky-Korsakov had clear views on his Capriccio espagnol. In his autobiography he wrote, "The opinion reached by both critics and the public that the Capriccio is a "magnificently orchestrated piece", is wrong. The Capriccio is a brilliant "composition for the orchestra".

The change of timbres, the felicitous choice of melodic designs and figuration patterns, exactly suiting each kind of instrument, brief virtuoso cadenzas for instruments solo, the rhythm of the percussion instruments, and so on, constitute here the very "essence of the composition and not its garb or orchestration".

Manuel de Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain for piano and orchestra is a similarly atmospheric work, a series of orchestral nocturnes with piano solos rather than a concerto proper.

"Symphonic impressions" is the description the composer uses on the score for music that's intended to be evocative of places which, in fact, he had never even visited.

It was an interesting but risky decision to programme these two works in sequence.

On this occasion, in spite of the profusion of Spanish rhythms, Alexander Anissimov's measured approach tended to work against the generation of sufficient momentum.

The soloist in the Falla, Joaquín Achúcarro, rippled and darted in and out of the orchestral fabric with experienced ease. Anissimov took a big-boned approach to Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, the emotional weight being provided through lots of volume.

The quieter passages worked well, with a high level of internal clarity, but the louder playing resulted in unpleasantly cluttered sound balances.

The experience of an orchestra in full flight is, however, a thrill with a wide appeal, and the audience responded to this performance with great enthusiasm. - Michael Dervan

Ulster Youth Choir/Bell. National Gallery, Dublin

The Ulster Youth Choir visited Dublin on Thursday as part of a spread-out, five-city tour that began last month in Newry and Lisburn, took it to Paris last weekend, and will conclude in Belfast at the beginning of November.

The choir, which was formed in 1999, numbers around 60, and works under the direction of Belfast-born conductor Christopher Bell, who is based in Scotland, where he is chorus master of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus and music director of the National Youth Choir of Scotland.

Thursday's programme consisted exclusively of music by living composers, James MacMillan, Bob Chilcott, Francisco Nuñez, Ian Wilson, Conor O'Reilly, Colin Mawby, and Michael McGlynn. MacMillan's setting of Burns's The Gallant Weaver and Wilson's of ee cummings's nine (birds) here provided the music of greatest substance, and the choral challenges they presented were finely surmounted.

These young singers perform with confidence and freedom. Both the lack of strain in the upper parts and the easy resonance achieved at the other end of the spectrum offered pleasures that many more experienced groups strive after with altogether more limited success.

The tenor of the rest of the music was lighter, the writing skilfully gauged to show a pure-voiced group in the most favourable light.

The choir's ability to handle this sort of repertoire with style, and Bell's skills in shaping these works with subtle contours, were fully established long before the end of the concert. - Michael Dervan

Ulster Orchestra - Thierry Fischer. Waterfront Hall, Belfast

Brian Irvine - And Pigs Might Fly Beethoven - Piano Concerto No 5. Tchaikovsky - Symphony No 5.

Brian Irvine, whose work with his own jazz fusion group has done so much to enliven the Belfast musical scene over the years, has found a fellow anarchic spirit in the actor Tom Baker, whose book The Boy Who Kicked Pigs was the inspiration for the short orchestral piece which began the latest Ulster Orchestra subscription series.

The music combined bravura orchestral writing with a characteristic sense of fun; its chief failing was the unusual one of being too short.

It would have been shorter still, but less disjointed, without passages of comic verse read, good-humouredly, by the composer.

The Tchaikovsky symphony was efficiently, and, in its later stages, excitingly played.

Tempi were sensible throughout, but the inner movements could have been more expansively phrased, while the outer movements suffered from the problematic Waterfront Hall acoustics, every note the brass played, loud or soft, being reflected off the wall behind the players and, seemingly, redirected straight towards the front row of Block F, where I was sitting.

Although someone seated a few rows back might have received an entirely different impression.

Fresh but unforced playing in the Beethoven, with clean articulation and well-placed accents, augured well for Fischer's forthcoming Beethoven symphony cycle.

Nikolai Demidenko provided his usual pearly fingerwork but seemed less engaged; the central movement, a romantic reverie for some performers of a previous generation, became a pleasantly inconsequential Intermezzo and it was only in the brisk final Rondo that the performance came to life. - Dermot Gault

Oman, Hurley. Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Dublin

Of all the elements that go to make up a successful song recital, the most important ones are tonal beauty, assured musicianship and, above all, good communication.

These three were delivered in abundance by soprano Sandra Oman and pianist Mairéad Hurley at the Bank of Ireland on Tuesday.

Oman's facility with Italianate cantilena was immediately made evident by her smooth singing in the opening selection of four Bellini songs.

In the Richard Strauss set that followed, this smoothness was augmented by a richness in the singer's lower register that was matched by the pianist's addition of extra tonal warmth to her already authoritative playing.

The passion engendered, especially in the central numbers Wiegenlied and

Allerseelen, bordered on the overwhelming.

Some of Rachmaninov's finest music is found in his songs, and the three offered here restored a sense of calm to the proceedings.

In the second of them, the one known in English as How fair this spot, Oman's execution of the difficult leap up to the soft high B natural was exquisite.

The vocalism was a little less perfect in the operatic items in the second half.

The runs in arias from Handel's Alcina and Gounod's Faust were negotiated cautiously rather than fluently, and a tendency to put pressure on notes around G and A resulted in opacity and marginal flatness.

We did get, however, a moving account of Manon's farewell to her petite table.

The concert ended in humourous mood with a splendid rendering of Bernstein's droll mini-cycle I hate music in which Oman's comic gift matched the clear delivery of words that had served her well, in five different languages, throughout the evening. - John Allen