{TABLE} Overture Romeo and Juliet ................ Tchaikovsky Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini .......... Rachmaninov Symphony No. 1 ........................... Shostakovich {/TABLE} THE Ulster Orchestra has been without a Principal Conductor for too long, so it is good to be able to report favourably on this concert, which marked not only the start of a new season of Ulster Orchestra subscription concerts, but also the beginning of Dmitri Sitkovetsky's tenure as Principal Conductor. One has had reservations about the heavy dosage of Russian classics scheduled for this season, but if they were all to receive such well-prepared and well-balanced performances, the prospect would be an attractive one.

Tempi in the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov items were brisk on the whole, but never forced, and the performances were mercifully free from exaggeration. At times, one would, in fact, have welcomed more expressive breadth; pianist Mikhail Rudy fairly sped through the Rhapsody, a piece which can sound like two good tunes and a lot of note-spinning, and the individual variations were not allowed much character. Sitkovetsky's Rachmaninov did not mope, but surely the strings could have made more of those two good tunes.

While the performance of the symphony was just as scrupulous, it showed a stronger personal response to the music The ironic first movement was crisply played; there was virtuosity in the second movement and warmth in the third and the performance as a whole conveyed the emotional complexity of this astonishingly mature work by a 19-year-old composer. Above all it had a cutting edge, which is essential in Shostakovich. We were treated to an encore, a fresh-sounding Rachmaninov Vocalise.