Rioting had gripped the streets of Dublin, but inside the National Concert Hall we were celebrating. This concert marked the 175th anniversary of the Royal Irish Academy of Music an institution which has done so much to shape the musical landscape of Ireland. Students of RIAM joined forces with the National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and, under the baton of Leonard Slatkin (here for a second week running), this was a concert to remember with its exhilarating singing and passionate music-making.
The sea was the theme which united the works, represented in all its moods and associations. From the meditativeness of Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage to the spiritual yearning of Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, the programme illustrated the allure the watery realm exerts on the artistic imagination.
Mendelssohn’s overture was inspired by two of Goethe’s poems, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. Here Slatkin and the NSO established an atmosphere of profound peace with their opening hushed, sustained chords. The flute entered coquettishly, but the tone really changed with the forthright notes on the horn announcing the Prosperous Voyage theme. The woodwind chirped along; birdlike arpeggios from the flutes and stirring cellos adding to the merry mood. Trumpets joyfully proclaimed their melody with élan and complete accuracy.
The Four Sea Interludes come from Britten’s opera Peter Grimes where the eponymous character is marginalised in a small fishing village. Slatkin instantly captured the eerie ambience which lurks in Dawn, though at times the violins' top notes were not always a harmonious blend. Brass growled while woodwind arpeggios screeched like seagulls.
The bells which open Sunday Morning were duly raucous while the violins were gossipy and malevolent with their shrill acciaccaturas. The trumpets possessed an accusatory tone with their disturbing accents. The ebbing repeated notes of Moonlight were masterfully controlled creating a hypnotic feel. Violence erupted in the Storm finale with rumbling timpani and harsh, strident brass. Slatkin whipped the orchestra into a frenzy.
Vaughan Williams’ First Symphony takes the four poems from Walt Whitman’s A Sea Symphony both as inspiration and as the text setting for the choir and soloists. There was so much to admire here: the majestic sweep and grandeur of the opening choral declaration of A Song for All Seas was awe-inspiring while the dramatic crescendos of the Scherzo The Waves was nothing less than thrilling. It took some time for Mark Stone’s baritone to warm up but by the time he sang On the Beach at Night Alone he conveyed the desolate loneliness demanded by both music and text. In the louder moments, he struggled somewhat to project against the huge waves of sound from choir and orchestra though his counterpart Elizabeth Watts did better in this respect. She blazed forth with her top B towards the end of the first movement. Slatkin, as ever, was masterful in shaping the music, whether in the overlapping layers at the beginning of The Explorers or the glorious power as the choir sang of the heavenly realm. The huge climax at the end was spine-tingling in its effect and so too was the soft, death-like ending, dissolving into silence.
