{TABLE} Der vierjahrige .......... Posten Overture ................. Schubert Violin Concerto .......... Mendelssohn Symphony No 9 (Great) .... Schubert {/TABLE} THE weekend's Schubert celebrations began at the National Concert Hall with a Schubert/Mendelssohn sandwich that included two of the most popular works in the orchestral repertoire and one that is virtually unknown.

The unknown was the opener, an early Schubert overture, given a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra under Kasper de Roo that was geared to routine and efficiency, and managed to fail in crucial moments, like the atmospheric horn calls of the opening.

Augustin Dumay was the soloist in a bustling reading of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Dumay is every inch a virtuoso, and the virtuoso approach to this music is one that's high in audience appeal. On this occasion, the intensity of tone and manner seemed to work rather against the music.

The effect was at its most pronounced in the first movement, where the "molto appassionato" was freely taken to involve upgrading most of the dynamic markings and where, too, the liaison over matters of tempo and rubato between conductor and soloist was not always convincing.

The calmer mood of the central Andante was more sensitively handled and the finale was agreeably sprightly.

Schubert's great C major symphony did not respond well to the brusque thrusting of Kasper de Roo's approach. This is not a piece which can well withstand having so much of the string figuration dominate the melodic material it's designed to accompany. Nor does it bear up well to having the scaling of its build ups misjudged. Without the requisite sense of scale, of the sustained traversal of large spans (what Schumann epitomised as the music's "heavenly length")

Schubert seems intent on subjecting his listeners to a lot of uncalled for repetition.