"A NIGHT In Vienna" was the title of the first of the Bank of Ireland RTE Proms in the RDS on Saturday night. One is expected to conjure up not the sad human dramas of the back streets but a gigantic ballroom thronged with swirling couples, exquisitely dressed, tiaras and cufflinks glittering beneath the chandeliers, the only danger a drop of wax on a bare shoulder.

Alas, the RTECO under Prionnsias O Duinn could not make up for the lack of the visual element. As waltz followed waltz, with a polka or two in between, one marvelled at the stamina of the old Viennese and the productivity of Johann Strauss II in particular. The audience, three or four thousand strong, may not have been dressed in Viennese style, but they swayed and sang (tentatively) the nostalgic tunes and lapped up the neatly acrobatic violin solos of Michael d'Arcy.