Irish Timeswriters attended two recent concerts at the National Concert Hall

RTÉ Philharmonic Choir, RTÉ NSO/Delfs

NCH, Dublin

Janacek – Glagolitic Mass

Beethoven – Symphony No 3 (Eroica)

Janacek's wrote his Glagolitic Massat the age of 72. When someone suggested that as an old man he was showing a belief in God that he hadn't shown earlier, he replied with a card, "No old man, and no believer – till I see for myself."

The work itself, a setting of the Mass in Old Slavonic, is similarly blunt. Its vitality is impressively, aggressively raw, and it often seems to strain at the bounds of the expressible. Friday’s RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra performance under visiting German conductor Andreas Delfs was imbued with fervour and vehemence, the contributions of the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir eager, the organ solos provided by the choir’s chorus master, Mark Duley, delivered with a spitting energy.

Soprano Katarina Jovanovic and tenor Jozef Kundlák bore the heaviest burdens among the vocal soloists, and both tended to tilt the world of the music away from the atmosphere of the church and towards the opera house.

Bass Matthew Rose projected strongly, and mezzo soprano Karen Cargill sang more gently without the operatic overtones.

Janacek's Mass is usually found at the end of a concert rather than at the beginning. But in tandem with Beethoven's EroicaSymphony, there was no musical option but to place it first.

Delfs's Eroicawas more urgent and less burly in character than the performances that have been heard in recent years from the RTÉ NSO's principal conductor Gerhard Markson. Delfs's music-making was also lighter on its feet, more incisive, and embraced an altogether wider range of contrast.

The performance's impressive features included the ineluctable momentum created in the sweep of the opening movement, and the deep penetrating pathos of the slow movement's funeral march. - Michael Dervan

Lyric Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Sheil

NCH, Dublin

Puccini – La Bohème.

The announcement of indisposition came at the interval rather than at the beginning in Lyric Opera's new production of Puccini's La Bohèmeon Saturday. Tenor Ryan MacPherson, the evening's Rodolfo, was suffering from tonsillitis.

Fortunately, both before and after the announcement, the bigger the moment, the less the problems of his condition were apparent. It was in the everyday moments rather than when his character was driven to heightened expression that the cracks appeared.

MacPherson was part of a suitably youthful team of Bohemians, with baritone Wyn Pencarreg an always solid Marcello, and basses John Owen Miley Read’s Schaunard and John Molloy’s Colline providing plenty of energy.

Soprano Jee Hyun Lim was a vocally penetrating Mimì, and Claudia Boyle a flighty Musetta, with Eugene Armstrong a more senior presence as Alcindoro.

John O’Donoghue’s set provided a rather cramped central space, and really only opened out effectively for the cold outdoors of Act III. Director Vivian Coates kept the action uncontroversially smooth, and both chorus and orchestra showed strength but not much subtlety under conductor Fergus Sheil.

Final performance on Tuesday. - Michael Dervan