Last night’s concert at the National Concert Hall featured star mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught (who is from Mullingar, in County Westmeath, and is artist-in-residence at the National Concert Hall for this season. She was accompanied by the National Symphony Orchestra directed by Laurence Cummings. You can tell how much I like Tara Erraught by the fact I went to the concert despite there being a harpsichord involved in some of the pieces; fortunately it was pointed away from the audience so we couldn’t hear it.
Before the concert, I was trying to remember when I heard her sing before. A look at my back catalogue revealed that it was this concert at which she sang a Mahler song-cycle. Last night’s performance comprised very different material, all from the 18th Century. There were three vocal pieces: a cantata in four sections by a name quite new to me, Marianna Martines, also known as Marianne von Martinez; a concert aria by Joseph Haydn; and by far the most exciting piece, Mozart’s wonderful Exsultate Jubilate. Tara Erraught was in fine voice throughout but I was particularly impressed with the precision of her articulation of the ornamented phrases in the last work. The audience loved it too.
The concert was all about Tara Erraught, however. The first half included Symphony No. 25 by Joseph Haydn, a funny little work only 13 minutes long and lacking the usual slow movement that seemed to me like it wasn’t really finished. It’s certainly not among Haydn’s best symphonies, anyway. It was a bit unfair on Haydn to have Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 “Jupiter” on the same menu as that it is one of the great symphonies by any composer. It did however demonstrate very powerfully how much the symphonic form had evolved in the twenty-odd years separating the two compositions (which incidentally are both in the same key of C Major). The Jupiter symphony is not only brim full of ideas, but the themes are woven into a much richer fabric. I might add that it was very well played by the NSO in a performance that was forceful and energetic without being too bombastic.
