Euryanthe Overture - Weber Scherzo and Nocturne - Borodin Piano Concerto in C - Anderson Finlandia
I Wish that more of the lunchtime orchestral concerts at the National Concert Hall had programmes as well conceived as last Tuesday's. Whatever the qualities of Leroy Anderson's Piano Concerto in C, it was a definite centrepiece, towards and from which the rest of the programme moved.
The National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Colman Pearce began with Weber's Euryanthe Overture and then played Glazunov's orchestration of the Scherzo and Nocturne from Borodin's Petite Suite for piano. The Borodin was played routinely, but the Weber saw some deftlypointed detail and characterisation. It was unfortunate that bad timing in joins prevented this piece from taking flight. There were no such problems at the end of the concert, in a hot-blooded performance of Sibelius's Finlandia.
Leroy Anderson - best known as arranger and composer for the Boston Pops Orchestra - suppressed his Piano Concerto in C, perhaps because of its stylistic ambivalence; it was released only after his death.
The first two movements of this three-movement, 20minute work are lightweight sub-Rachmaninov. They are not pretentious, like Addin sell's Warsaw Concerto, for example, but nevertheless compare poorly with the definitive light-music Anderson of the last movement, with its American-country-dance refrains.
Anthony Byrne played the solo part with plenty of brio and he and Colman Pearce made a robust partnership.