Milhaud– Chamber Symphony No 5. Beethoven– Symphony No 1. Violin Concerto at the RDS, Dublin
ILLNESS PREVENTED Anthony Marwood, artistic director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra, from participating in this, the first of the seven programmes of the ICO’s 2010/11 season. Since Marwood was to have double- jobbed as director and violin soloist, two replacement artists had to be engaged.
Conductor Proinnsías Ó Duinn came on board in time to get a full mention in the programme book, but by then the services of rising French virtuoso Fanny Clamagirand had yet to be secured. Apart from the presence of a precautionary copy on Clamagirand’s music stand, however, nothing about their performance of the Beethoven concerto even remotely suggested last-minute preparations.
The solo playing simply bubbled with ideas, uncovering arrays of characterful design in the passage work and making every tuneful event tell.
The impression of considered imaginativeness was strongly affirmed in a musicianly treatment of the cadenzas.
With its slender, incisive tone, Clamagirand’s 1700 Matteo Goffriller violin sat comfortably with the ICO’s 19 strings and 12 winds – a much smaller complement than the average modern symphony orchestra’s, but much closer to that for which Beethoven wrote.
Both the concerto and Beethoven’s first symphony proved forcible reminders of how much more effective his scores can be when they are assigned to the right number of players.
The benefits were felt in terms not only of the smaller ensemble’s greater agility and intercommunicativeness (of which Ó Duinn took much advantage), but also of the enhanced impact of the winds.
Ten members of the ICO’s burgeoning wind section had opened the proceedings with a suave, self-directed account of Milhaud’s Chamber Symphony No 5, and their contributions to both Beethoven works were colourful and finely blended. Here were sure signs that the ICO’s expansion from a slick strings-only ensemble is a step in the right direction.
