IT'S HARD to remember what Dublin was like six years ago, let alone 60. It's a fair bet that traffic snarl-ups on Pearse Street were pretty rare in 1948. There wasn't even a Dart, let alone a Luas, and a skinny latte wasn't even a glint in a glitterati's eye. It's hard to see the Dublin of over half-a-century ago as it "really" was.
You can either don the rose-coloured specs and lament the loss of the rare auld times - or see it all as drab and sepia-coloured and best forgotten. But one thing's for sure: it was a much smaller city with a much smaller arts scene. So when Radio Éireann set up a symphony orchestra in 1948 and invited musicians from all over Europe to come and live and work here, these exotic creatures cut quite a dash.
In the 1940s Brian O'Rourke, general manager of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, was a youngster growing up in Dublin's city centre - which, he points out, didn't at all seem drab to a child. "My earliest memory is of walking under the arch at Winetavern Street," he says. "And you can still see traces - or rather, feel traces - of that city in streets like Capel Street, Prussia Street, Manor Street, where the aspect, the skyline, hasn't really changed all that much."
In those days there was a concert "season", and O'Rourke remembers meeting members of the orchestra coming down Grafton Street in their jackets and ties in the middle of the day. "They had just got their summer holidays, and they were like children who'd been let out of school," he says. "But I remember the feeling of desolation that there would be no concerts until well into September."
At a time when Ireland was almost uniformly Irish, the orchestra offered a pot-pourri of diverse names, accents and faces. Audiences quickly developed favourites, and people would go to concerts to hear the flautist André Prieur to play his solo. Or the clarinettist Michele Insenzo, whose technique was particularly dazzling. Or Helmut Seeber or Gilbert Berg.
"There were a lot of Italian string players," says O'Rourke. "Renzo Marchionni was an aristocrat - definitely a capo - and although he had a God-given technique, it was never enough for him. He used to write his own exercises on Paganini's Caprices to make them more difficult. He forever had the fiddle under his chin. The orchestra had a two-hour break for lunch, and he used to give recitals of unaccompanied Bach or Paganini to whoever would sit and listen."
There were, of course, many fine Irish orchestral musicians as well. But the international mix was volatile - sometimes a little too volatile. "Most of the principal winds were French," recalls O'Rourke, "but there was a very odd situation with German second winds. Schools of playing are much less differentiated nowadays then they were 60 years ago; the French woodwind school was very, very definitely French, and the bassoon was much thinner. A different instrument from the one played in Germany - a different concept altogether. So that was a bit strange. Yes, the orchestra was very volatile. Fizzy, you might say - often at the expense of more arcane orchestral disciplines."
The orchestra is much bigger now, of course. There's also a much bigger - and broader - musical scene generally, with many more venues, visiting orchestras coming in from abroad, and impromptu orchestras springing up all over the place, as well as recitals every night all over the country.
Is bigger better? "It's hard to say," says O'Rourke. "Because how do you compare? When you go back to old recordings, recording standards have changed so much that it's sometimes very hard to even listen to them. It would be very difficult to say that it's not better now than it was. It's certainly more homogeneous. One thing I can say, though, is that the standard of musical training that has emerged in college because of the presence of orchestral musicians in Dublin has changed things radically. And that's very, very important."
Over its 60-year lifespan the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra has provided countless magical musical moments and a plethora of programmes, some exciting and challenging, some comforting and safe; and next Friday, May 23rd, sees the launch of yet another new season's programme. "Next year is Gerhard Markson's final year in command of the orchestra, and so the season will revisit some of the great music he has conducted during his time as chief conductor," says O'Rourke. "That's one strand of the programming."
There is also some centenary celebration to be done. Haydn died in 1809 - and Mendelssohn was born. "We'll be opening the season with Haydn's oratorio The Creation, and we'll also do six of his symphonies. Wonderful music both for audience and orchestra, those - real classics, and we mustn't forget that Haydn was the father of the symphony. We're doing Mendelssohn's oratorio St Paul at Easter-time as well as the x Scottish and Italian symphonies, and the violin concerto. It's also the Axa year, so we'll have the winner of the last piano competition, and then the new competition as well. And the season will finish with Mahler's Resurrection symphony this time next year."
Comings and goings. Births and deaths. Another normal year in the life of a symphony orchestra. So here's to another 60 years - and then some.