Festive Overture - Shostakovich
Violin Concerto No 1 - Shostakovich
Symphony No 1 ("Spring") - Schumann
Character and energy were among the strong points of the National Symphony Orchestra's concert at the National Concert Hall on Thursday night.
Polish conductor Jerzy Maksymiuk has appeared with the NSO on several occasions over the last few years, and has a knack of encouraging vividly coloured, confident playing.
A hell-for-leather account of Shostakovich's Festive Overture made a gripping, if none-too-subtle start to the concert. The robustly supple approach by Jerzy Maksymiuk to the Scherzo in Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No 1 typified another strong point of most parts of the concert.
Chantal Juillet played the concerto's solo part with complete musicianship of the sort which, even in the face of extraordinary technical challenges, keeps musical values uppermost. If there was an abiding limitation, it lay in Maksymiuk's tendency to a persistently urgent rhythm, even in slow movements. Nevertheless, it was good to hear the ebullient yet flawed Schumann's Symphony No. 1 (Spring) played with a conviction which seemed ignorant of the music's many weaknesses.