John Georgiadis was just the man to conduct Friday night's concert at the National Concert Hall. It was the first in the "Golden Jubilee Favourites" series given by the National Symphony Orchestra this month and dominated by music chosen via public poll.
The programme of eleven popular pieces worked fairly well. The first half was devoted to the more serious stuff - Glinka, Smetana, Khachaturian, Mussorgsky and Sibelius - and the second to music by Suppe, Liszt, Johann Strauss II and Offenbach.
It felt as if John Georgiadis's impeccable orchestral pedigree - for 11 years he was leader of the London Symphony Orchestra - lay behind this concert's security with what the orchestra could and should do. In the first half, ensemble, phrasing, colour and balance were usually precise. Speeds felt right, and each piece and section had appropriate character.
However, the conducting suggested musicianship which was reliable rather than scintillating, more concerned with immediate character and contrast than with subtle shifting and shading. So Sibelius's Finlandia and the Adagio from Khachaturian's Spartacus did not make the impact they can. Nor did Smetana's Vltava, despite its ample, almost Wagnerian pacing.
The second half saw Georgiadis at his communicative best. There was nothing twee about his chatty introductions to Strauss et al. They came from inside the music and seemed as appreciated by the orchestra as by the audience. The Roses from the South waltz had a truly Viennese lilt. After an apparently authentic full-orchestra version of the Pizzicato Polka, Georgiadis took co-leader Elaine Clark's violin to direct the NSO strings in Strauss's own, well-documented manner, affected pauses and all. Everyone relished the challenge.