Notturno in D K286 - Mozart
Symphony No 3 - Mahler
With a first movement that alone is longer than Beethoven's Fifth, and a total playing time of over 1 1/2 hours, it's unusual for Mahler's Third Symphony to be paired with anything else in concert.
For his first Dublin appearance of 1998, Alexander Anissimov, the National Symphony Orchestra's principal guest conductor, chose to precede the Mahler with a real rarity, a Notturno for four orchestras by Mozart, which was performed with the players grouped on either side of the main platform and upstairs in the balcony, on either side of the organ.
As an entree for a concert, this insubstantial, cleverly-knit play with dwindling echo effects, calls for lightness of touch, wit and charm, none of which were in generous supply in this particular performance.
If Anissimov - who becomes the NSO's principal conductor next season - needed a briefing in the challenges he faces in 18th-century repertoire with this orchestra, he certainly got it here.
Mahler's Third, a completely different sort of challenge, also triggers some of the orchestra's weak spots. The opening movement stalled often enough to fracture badly. The trombone solos were of shocking barbarity, and the emotional tenor of the musicmaking was often askew, with some heightened moments sounding grotesque in ways that were not of Mahler's imagining.
Part of the problem here is that the orchestra so rarely gets to play Mahler symphonies apart from the First, Fourth and Fifth. The major improvement after the marathon of the opening movement of the Third could be attributed to the change in mood, to a world of innocence and warmth, familiar to the players from the Fourth. The mezzo soprano soloist in the fourth movement was the Russian, Natalia Erasova, affectingly lovely of voice but strange of diction and vowel sound. The ladies of the RTE Philharmonic Choir and RTE Cor na nOg provided the freshvoiced, naive angelic choirs of the Fifth.
Anissimov and his players saved their very best for the finale, working sensitively through subdued restraint up to a glowing peroration.
