Concert review: ​Vastly different eras illustrate the enduring romance of music

Friday night’s performance in the Ulster Hall, titled ‘Young Romantics’, featured the music of Bruch and Schumann and much else.

This was an imaginative way to bridge the main season’s gap since the Christmas offerings in December.

Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1 is one of the most performed pieces in the classical repertoire, and Friday’s stunning performance by the Ukrainian virtuoso Aleksey Semenenko made this familiar music seem decidedly fresh.

However, the orchestra under the direction of the distinguished conductor Alpesh Chauhan almost overpowered the soloist in part of the first movement, but things settled down for the lyrically beautiful adagio, and finale. The soloist performed a hauntingly beautiful encore which seemed like a lament for the tragedy of his native war-torn country.

The second half opened with a delightful performance of Louise Farrenc’s Overture No 2, which sounded much more engaging than Mendelssohn’s Overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage which opened the concert, and which showed how much the older musical world had missed by disgracefully ignoring the work of outstanding female composers for far too long.

The concert ended with Robert Schumann’s 4th Symphony which really came to life in the triumphant final movement.

The Saturday night concert in the packed Waterfront Hall was also a swinging success with a tribute to the Rat Pack originals – Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Junior and Dean Martin.

The last time I heard this concert ‘live’ was in a packed hotel auditorium in Las Vegas where the gorgeous young woman playing the role of Marilyn Monroe slowly circled the room and then sweetly placed herself on my lap and made me part of her act. However, that’s another story.

There was no repeat for me in the Waterfront Hall on Saturday but the concert brought back happy memories of the Las Vegas encounter and also an appreciation of the heyday of the music of the 1950s and 1960s.

The current trio Stephen Triffit (Frank), Mark Adams (Dean) and George Daniel Long (Sammy) have been performing their routine globally for 20 years, and under the direction of the conductor Stuart Morley, with the lively female backing trio of Goldiggers, they totally captured the magic of the past and underlined the versatility of our own Ulster Orchestra. Top class in every way.