Welcome returns for Angela Hewitt and Daniele Rustioni at Ulster Hall concert
The Ulster Hall concert on Friday was a star-studded event with the appearance of Angela Hewitt, the globally acclaimed pianist, and the former chief conductor and music director of the Ulster Orchestra Daniele Rustioni making a much-anticipated return to Belfast following his last appearance here 12 months ago.
The concert opened with the Richard Strauss Overture and Dance Scene from his opera ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’.
It was a far cry from the composer’s sombre ‘Metamorphosen’ played here on Good Friday evening, but after a subdued start the overture burst into lively rhythms and lightness, representing the clowns in the score, and reminiscent of Sondheim’s masterpiece ‘Send in the clowns – don’t bother they’re here’.
From the moment Angela Hewitt stepped on stage it became an even more special occasion.
Happily for the audience, this truly outstanding pianist was including Belfast in her major project The Mozart Odyssy, performing his complete piano concertos in venues across the globe.
On Friday it was Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 24, which Angela performed with superb aplomb and virtuosity.
In announcing her encore she mentioned a previous visit here a long time ago, and referred rightly to the beautiful Ulster Hall, which nearly all visiting musicians do.
She is acknowledged worldwide as a leading interpreter of Bach, and fittingly her spellbinding encore was from his Goldberg Variations. She was given a rapturous reception, and rightly so.
The main work in the second half was Tchaikovsky’s Third ‘Polish’, Symphony which is an enigma. While a considerable musical tour de force, it is played all too rarely in comparison to his three powerful subsequent symphonies.
The Third is very much Tchaikovsky in parts, such as in the first and final movements. In the intervening three movements there are flashes of the Tchaikovsky we know, pointing to the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, but no big sustained melodies, passion and emotion which give the others such enduring power and attraction.
After the premiere in 1875 Tchaikovsky remarked that his Third Symphony “presents no particularly successful ideas but in workmanship it’s a step forward”. This neatly sums it up.
Nevertheless Rustioni and the orchestra gave it their very best shot, right to the triumphant finale.
It was great to see the flailing arms and the famous ‘Rustioni bounce’ back again, and we have really missed him.
There have been many impressive young guest conductors on stage since he left last year, but it would be good to welcome a new principal conductor as soon as possible.