Geschopfe des Prometheus Overture - Beethoven
Violin Concerto - Beethoven
Pastoral Symphony - Beethoven
The Italian National Radio Symphony (Orchestra Sinfonic Nazionale della RAI) was established as recently as 1994, but can trace its roots back to 1931, when the Italian national radio service founded its first symphony orchestra in Turin.
The new orchestra arose from the rationalisation of broadcasting orchestras in Turin, Milan, Rome and Naples. It is based in Turin and has performed under some of the leading conductors of the day, Carlo Maria Giulini, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Semyon Bychkov and Eliahu Inbal among them.
The orchestra made its Irish debut in an all-Beethoven programme at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast yesterday afternoon under violinist Salvatore Accardo, who also featured as soloist.
Accardo's approach, with stability of tempo and fine rhythmic precision appearing low in his priorities, reminded one that Italian orchestras are not renowned for tightness of discipline.
These problems were at their strongest in the concerto, where the violin-playing, understandably, took most of the soloist/conductor's concentration. Accardo is a player with a wonderfully easy technique and a ravishingly beautiful, almost mesmerisingly mellifluous tone. With the exception of the cadenzas, where he reminded one of his reputation as a dazzler in Paganini, his was as relaxed a traversal of the Beethoven Violin Concerto as you could imagine.
There was a directness of style in both the Prometheus Overture and Pastoral Symphony which made for no frills, al fresco music-making. The strengths of individual players and sections did not gell well enough for the orchestra to sound close to its full potential. But there was an underlying amiability of spirit which amply compensated.
