4/5
HEMMED in by Russians, Beethoven appeared to have strayed into the wrong concert last night. In the event it was Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, with Russel Boyd as narrator, which seemed more out of place with the occasion than Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 1, with Arta Arnicane as soloist.
It was hard to decide what the Prokofiev was doing at the start of a programme the rest of which seemed aimed at an adult audience. The absence of a printed reference to a speaker did suggest that, for once, we were to be treated to a purely instrumental performance of the music. That would certainly have been a novelty, not least because Garry Walker brought such finesse and colour to the orchestral part. But the absence of a speaker's name turned out to be an oversight, rectified by an announcement from the platform, and so we had Boyd's dry narration, based on a new, restrained translation by Rita McAllister, which was at least preferable to the usual avuncular delivery of the text.
There was a degree of restraint, too, in the young Latvian pianist's account of the first movement of the Beethoven. But her performance opened out as it proceeded through a warm, not over-romanticised treatment of the slow movement and an exuberant finale, vivaciously accompanied by Walker and with a really witty cadenza.
It was in the second half that the concert let rip. With an explosive performance of Kabalevsky's Colas Breugnon overture and a vivid presentation of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, a late, hugely seductive masterpiece which still seldom quite gets its due, but of which Walker drew from the student orchestra a fleet, articulate, glorious performance.
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